As schools and students continue to become more culturally  diverse, it is more important than ever to center students' cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives within educator-student interactions to ensure that learning is relevant, equitable, and empowering. But what does a culturally responsive educator-student relationship look like in practice? That’s one question that the Cultural Adaptation of Developmental Relationships in Education (CADRE) project set out to answer. This partnership between Search Institute and three middle schools aimed to build the schools’ capacity to adapt the Developmental Relationships Framework to meet their diverse students’ needs. We’re unpacking insights shared by educators who were part of CADRE.

Culturally Responsive Developmental Relationships

The Developmental Relationships Framework outlines five core dimensions of high-quality student-educator relationships: Express Care, Challenge Growth, Provide Support, Share Power, and Expand Possibilities. The framework intends to benefit all students, and its effectiveness hinges on adapting these relational strategies to reflect the cultural identities and lived realities of both educators and students. Here are key strategies used by educators in our partner schools: 

Express Care: Show me that I matter to you.

• Learn about students’ lives outside of school, including traditions and interests rooted in their cultural backgrounds.
• Ask about and genuinely listen to students’ stories and experiences, not just about what students do, but why it matters to them.

• Avoid speaking for students’ cultures. Encourage them to share in their own words.

Share Power: Treat me with respect and give me a say.

• Create space for students to teach you about their cultures or co-create learning experiences together.
• Be honest if you do not know much about a student’s cultural background, and let them know you’re open to learning.
• Recognize how your role in the classroom and your social identities can shape student access, voice, and participation. 

Provide Support: Help me complete tasks and achieve goals.

• Listen closely to what students say they need, especially when cultural practices impact their learning experience. Adjust support accordingly (e.g., rethinking group assignments that require mixed-gender collaboration for students whose cultural norms discourage it), rather than defaulting to standard routines. 

Challenge Growth: Push me to keep getting better.

• Encourage students to explore their cultural identity more deeply and stretch into new experiences when ready. Offer flexibility and support as they navigate potential tensions between school expectations and cultural values.

Expand Possibilities: Connect me with people and places that broaden my world.

• Expose students to new ideas that are connected with and affirm who they are by bringing in examples, stories, and historical figures that reflect their cultural background beyond the traditional curriculum.

Most educators described Express Care as the easiest element to practice. Share Power and Expand Possibilities were often viewed as harder to implement. The following educators shared what it looked like to take on these elements:

One educator described acknowledging power and privilege—inviting students’ perspectives, and putting himself in his students’ shoes were key to building equitable learning environments:

“I think you need to acknowledge the difference[s]... When we pretend they don't exist, we're actually doing an enormous disservice to kids that come from marginalized populations. And I think you need to be genuine about acknowledging it… I mean, acknowledging that you know, I grew up lower middle class, and there's privilege in that, that a lot of our kids that walk through these halls don't have. And I think it's important to address those differences and show the kids in a real, meaningful way that you are still willing to not only hear their opinion, but take it in and allow it to direct your own actions… I think if you begin from a place of being humble, or expressing yourself with humility and saying, you know, ‘Hey, I recognize these differences. Are there these privileges that are inherent in the way that I show up? I'm interested in getting to know you.’” 

This educator also drew on cultural humility and awareness to engage students through Expand Possibilities by introducing identity-affirming content and creating space for students to explore and express their culture and identities in class discussions and writing prompts beyond the traditional curriculum:

“I gave kids, you know, a chance during Ramadan to share about what that looks like in their homes, um, you know, in a purposeful and organized way in the classroom during Women's History Month, as we did little mini reports on awesome women throughout history. You know, we also made sure to include as a component to that awesome women in your day-to-day life to make sure that our kids felt safe, by empowering the female-bodied people in their lives… I think also giving kids space to see the, you know, it's a middle school; they're trying to figure out their own identity... I think it's important for us to be able to hold space for that, because as we help them in our classes become their best selves, that also helps them become their best academic selves.”

Another educator shared that giving students autonomy in choosing their class project topics (Share Power) often led to work that connected their interests to meaningful issues in their lives and communities (Expand Possibilities):

“We did just do a project here in algebra class. Where they were in charge of collecting data on any two variable topics they wanted to… and a lot of kids chose topics like, how much time you spend on your cell phone and how much sleep you get at night… So since that project had such an open-ended—like you could choose whatever topic you wanted… I have had kids look at, you know, like crime rates based on race. I've had kids choose, like poverty rates based on the year or based on race. So it does allow students to really explore topics that are meaningful to them and that they can relate to.”

Strengthening Cultural Responsiveness Through Critical Reflection and Shared Power

The above examples illustrate how educators can respect and affirm the cultural assets that students bring into the school and acknowledge the power differentials between educators and students. As these stories show, cultural responsiveness must extend further to recognize and address how systemic oppression shapes students’ learning experiences in order to create equitable school environments.

Zooming out from these promising cases, many educators found it difficult to move from cultural awareness to meaningful action. Doing so requires educators to engage in critical reflection on their positionality, practice cultural humility, embrace emotional vulnerability, and commit to ongoing learning about students’ lived realities. Most educators in the interviews commonly reported struggling with this process, especially when they had limited exposure to cultures beyond their own. Being culturally responsive means recognizing students as the experts of their lived experiences and cultural assets, and being willing to learn from them, as emphasized by the Share Power element. Understandably, some shared that they felt uneasy about implementing Share Power due to concerns about classroom management. To alleviate these concerns, Search Institute offers practical tools that enable educators to Share Power in everyday interactions with students and elevate student voice within a respectful and structured classroom environment.

Engaging in culturally responsive teaching requires more than recognizing and valuing diversity—it requires confronting systemic injustice, questioning dominant assumptions, and committing to (un)learning and reflective growth. Although this work can feel difficult for educators regardless of background, it is foundational to culturally responsive student-teacher relationships, where care, support and growth—coupled with shared power and expanded possibilities—create the conditions for meaningful learning and development. 

So Jung Lee is a fourth-year doctoral student in the Educational Psychology program (Human Development and Learning strand) at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she also earned her B.A. in Applied Psychology and M.Ed. in Measurement, Evaluation, Statistics, and Assessment. Her research examines youth-adult relationships within informal learning contexts as central to fostering positive youth development. So Jung is one of Search Institute's 2025 Summer Scholars.