The “culture audit”: a leadership tool for assessment and strategic  (Page 2/3)

Just as a financial audit reveals strengths and gaps in financial procedures and practices to inform strategicplans for financial improvement, a culture audit focuses on how well an organization incorporates perspectives of diverse groups toinform comprehensive school improvement.

Primary domains of analysis in school and college settings

Practicing educational leaders frequently want to know what a culture audit “really looks like.” Whileauditing formats may vary depending on the specific school, college, or district, there are some key areas that can be examinedto determine strengths and needs.

To help educational leaders visualize how a culture audit might look, the diagram below reflects ten potentialdomains of focus for conducting culture audits in schools and colleges. The domains are not meant to be exhaustive and may beexpanded or reduced to accommodate the needs and interests of the individual organization.

Based on professional experience, research, and literature on organizational cultural competence andproficiency (Bustamante, 2005), examples of culturally competent practices are listed under each domain to provide a better sense ofthe kind of factors that can be observed in a culture audit.

I. vision/mission

• Stated commitment to diversity.
• Integrated global perspectives.

Ii. curriculum

• Literature selections reflect a variety of cultural perspectives.
• Integration of world views, geography, and history.
• Linguistic and content objectives are addressed for second language learners.

Iii.students

• Balanced racial/ethnic representation in advanced placement, honors, gifted programs.
• Regular meetings held with randomly selected groups to obtain feedback and consider student “voice” in decision-making.
• Variety of student leadership development opportunities for all students.
• Observed inter-racial/inter-ethnic social integration among students.
• Support programs to promote achievement and retention of lower achieving groups.
• Student-initiated community service.

Iv. teachers/faculty

• Conscious recruitment of diverse groups.
• Mentoring and support programs for new teachers.
• Vertical and horizontal teacher teaming according to individual strengths, leadership abilities, and interests.
• Conscious integration efforts to diverse teacher teams.
• Professional development that addresses race, culture, and language opportunities and challenges.
• Focused, long term professional development.

V. teaching and learning

• Differentiated instruction.
• Researched strategies that account for various learning styles.
• Technology integration.
• Connections to student culture and prior knowledge.
• Second language learning and teaching strategies.
• Service learning.

Vi. communities

• Outreach to various local community constituency groups.
• Inclusion of all potential stakeholder groups in community-building forums through use of parent liaisons.
• Parent involvement programs for all culture groups.
• Established national and global ties through partnerships with similar organizations.
• Realization and utilization of the electronic community for relationship building and sourcing best practices.