Culturally Responsive Teaching Is a Necessity
Jan 26, 2026
Systems of power and inequality show up in schools everywhere: through policy, curriculum decisions, classroom norms and expectations, discipline practices, and so much more. These systems are baked into the ways we interact, and schools are not separate from these forces; they reflect them. While often, school staff perpetuates the effects of these systems unknowingly or unintentionally, the impacts remain harmful for students who feel unseen, unheard, unsupported, and in the worst cases, marginalized.
Therefore, Culturally Responsive Teaching is not a trend or a professional preference, but a necessary response that ensures all students experience belonging, safety, and opportunity in their classrooms. We can interrupt harm and build connections, so that we can create learning environments where students learn and thrive.
Culturally Responsive Teaching requires us to acknowledge that culture and learning are interconnected. In Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain, Zaretta Hammond explains that students’ cultural identities shape how they process information, build relationships, and feel safe in learning spaces. When students are asked, overtly or not, to leave parts of themselves at the door, their nervous systems stay in a state of threat, negatively impacting their capacity to learn. And we know from Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) research, which we discussed in last week’s blog, that a sense of belonging at school is not only necessary for learning, but also a powerful protective factor that supports children who’ve been affected by stress and trauma.
At its center, Culturally Responsive Teaching pushes schools to ask hard questions, particularly when there is a mismatch between the diversity of the staff and student body – which we see quite often. We partner with many schools where staff diversity does not reflect student diversity; and not just in regards to race, but also culture, language, family structure, life experience, etc. In these circumstances, power rests with adults who are not part of their students’ cultural groups. Student belonging cannot exist in these classroom and school conditions without culturally responsive practices. That is why, even well-meaning educators can unintentionally perpetuate harm, exclusion, and disconnection.
In order to create a sense of belonging where the power primarily lies with people who are not in our cultural group, adults need to intentionally take on the task of learning about the cultures of their students, to create an environment that appropriately and adequately meet their needs.
In doing so, we ask questions like whose knowledge is centered? Whose culture is treated as the default? Whose behavior is labeled typical? Which behaviors are accepted, and which are disciplined? How does discipline look? Many academic and behavioral expectations in schools are rooted in white, middle-class norms. When these norms go unnamed, they become rules that students from other cultural backgrounds are expected to absorb.
Culturally Responsive Teaching invites educators to examine the source of their expectations and to intentionally honor the values, traditions, languages, and lived experiences of the students in their classrooms. Ultimately, schools must exist as part of the communities they serve, rather than as institutions that try to reshape students to fit a narrow definition of success.
This is not just about inclusion. It’s about shifting power and creating classrooms where students are not simply managed, but deeply known, creating a sense of belonging that supports regulation and learning. And Culturally Responsive Teaching is one pathway to belonging. In a world that continues to devalue, erase, and criminalize marginalized communities, Culturally Responsive Teaching is a necessary act of justice.
Recommended Reading
- Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond
- Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education by Alex Shevrin Venet
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