Cultural Responsiveness

Our Commitment to Being Culturally Responsive

Learning A-Z is committed to building cultural awareness, understanding, and respect through thoughtfully developed instructional resources. We believe education is the cornerstone of change and are committed to providing culturally responsive resources that serve teachers, students, and families of all backgrounds and ethnicities in classrooms and homes around the globe.

As a company, we believe equitable education is vital to social and economic outcomes for individuals and communities. We are taking actions to build equity considerations into the ideation and production of our products. We are working towards better representing our customers and community and have significantly increased our investment in equity in education.

The full investment includes a number of simultaneous and necessary ongoing activities:

• An ongoing external and internal audit of our content to ensure that it is culturally inclusive and representative of the students we serve;
• The development of new resources created by a diverse team through a DEI lens to represent real-life topics, facilitate meaningful conversations, and provide social-emotional learning support;
• The engagement of an external Culturally Dynamic Content Advisory Group and our internal DEI Council to guide our work and hold us accountable;
• Learning A-Z CONNECT, a virtual symposium created to engage our community in conversations on the most pressing issues affecting educators and students; and
• Continued collaboration with UNICEF USA to give students the ability to help families in need regardless of their economic background.

STAYING ACCOUNTABLE

To learn is to grow. Evolving means changing. That’s why we value feedback from experts and readers like you as we rise to these key challenges. We are seeking input from specialists around the nation to guide our future planning.

Culturally Dynamic Content Advisory Group

Learning A-Z is guided by the Culturally Dynamic Content Advisory Group, which is composed of diverse subject matter experts who focus on big picture topics to address gaps and instructional needs. The current members include community organizers, education professionals, researchers, parent advocates, counselors, writers, and artists from across the country and from diverse backgrounds. Their input guides Learning A-Z planning for the future.

Content Review Group

Our content is reviewed by a group of individuals who have experience working with K-12 students, especially in the areas of social-emotional learning, English language development, and dual language teaching, as well as by people who have experience working with organizations or communities dedicated to DEI and cultural competence in educational materials.

These experienced individuals provide input on the resources under development to ensure we create content that accurately and respectfully represents the diverse communities we serve. Our reviewers analyze materials with an eye to cultural responsiveness, instructional value, social-emotional needs, grade-appropriateness, and more. This review process is ongoing and we are following the recommendations for our content given to us by this Content Review Group.