Culturally Relevant Curriculum

The intervention consists of replacing the standard primary-school history curriculum with a locally grounded history curriculum designed to reduce the cognitive distance between curricular content and students’ lived environments. In partnership with education experts, historians, and community leaders, we collected local historical information and developed grade-appropriate history lessons tailored to the sub-district level. The new curriculum covers the same subject area as the standard curriculum but uses local places, events, historical figures, and social references that are more familiar to students.
The study includes two treatment arms. In Treatment 1, teachers deliver the locally grounded history curriculum in French during regular instructional time. In Treatment 2, the same localized curriculum is taught in French and is additionally reinforced through discussions in local languages led by a community elder. The control group continues with the standard history curriculum. The intervention lasts for six months during the school year and does not increase formal instructional time. Its purpose is to test whether reducing the cognitive distance of curricular content increases student engagement and improves general reading-related learning.

2022-12-01

2026-05-11

Ability to read: whether the student can read anything from a short text presented to her
Reading Skills Index: standardized index combining foundational reading measures, including syllable recognition and word recognition.
Reading Comprehension Score: total score on comprehension questions based on a new grade-appropriate reading passage administered at endline.
Reading Fluency Index: standardized index combining passage reading speed and accuracy, constructed from reading time and the number of words misread on a new grade-appropriate passage.

The primary outcomes are broad reading outcomes measured at endline using new grade-appropriate texts rather than the localized curriculum itself. These outcomes are: (i) a Reading Skills Index, combining syllable and word recognition; (ii) a Reading Comprehension Score, based on responses to comprehension questions; and (iii) a Reading Fluency Index, combining reading speed and accuracy as measured by passage reading time and words misread.

Reading engagement: self-reported time spent reading outside the classroom.
History-related engagement and attitudes: indicators of interest in history lessons, curiosity after class, desire to learn more about local history, and whether students ask teachers or parents questions about history lessons.
Foundational reading components: syllable recognition, word recognition, passage reading time, and number of words misread, reported separately in addition to their inclusion in the main indices.
Exploratory cognitive outcomes: digit span and Raven test performance.
Exploratory aspirations outcomes: indicators related to students’ future aspirations, including whether they report wanting to live and work in urban areas.

This project is a school-level randomized controlled trial in public primary schools in Benin. Schools are assigned to one of three arms: a control group that continues with the standard history curriculum, a treatment group that receives a locally grounded history curriculum, and a second treatment group that receives the same localized curriculum with additional reinforcement through local-language discussions led by a community elder. Random assignment is conducted at the school level within commune strata, with control, Treatment 1, and Treatment 2 schools represented in each commune.

Not available

Randomization was done in the office by a computer using STATA.

Schools

No

122

4474 students

40 schools in treatment 1, 41 schools in treatment 2, and 41 in control.