The Development and Validation of the Academic Cultural Wealth Scale: Recognizing Student Strengths Through Critical Quantitative Methods

This article details the development and validation of the Academic Cultural Wealth Scale (ACW)—a survey instrument that measures the Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) postsecondary Students of Color use to pursue their educational and career goals. Through four stages of testing with students attending different colleges and universities, we created a scale that suitably captures various dimensions of CCW. We also provide evidence to support the quantitative measurement of newer forms (e.g., Spiritual Capital) and distinct subforms (e.g., Chosen Familial Capital) of CCW. Finally, we offer advice to those who wish to measure the CCW of specific student populations and to those who hope to quantify highly interrelated concepts from other frameworks within the Critical Race Theory (CRT) tradition.