Author: Aydin Bal

December 2015, 35 pp.

Abstract: This paper presents a framework for culturally responsive positive behavioral interventions and supports (CRPBIS). The CRPBIS framework aims to facilitate positive, supportive, inclusive and democratic school cultures through ecologically valid and sustainable systemic transformations led and owned by local stakeholders. This is the first framework that operationalizes cultural responsiveness in the context of PBIS. It is designed to remediate social and academic activities within schools that place specific groups of students and families at the margins. The CRPBIS framework uses the Learning Lab, a systemic transformation methodology, as the operational definition of CRPBIS.

The Learning Lab methodology opens up problem-solving processes to family and community members who have been historically excluded from schools’ activities. It follows five interceptive actions:

1. forming a Learning Lab;
2. determining desired outcomes;
3. empirically and culturally validating research-based practices;
4. using data for continuous improvement and innovation; and
5. systemic change.

Keywords: cultural responsiveness, positive behavioral interventions and supports, cultural-historical activity theory, expansive learning, learning lab, systemic change

Read the full working paper: Culturally Responsive Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PDF)