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Of course, there's more to knowing students than brain development and the settings our students inhabit. Recent research within the field of developmental psychology is revealing important information about the role that culture plays in the psychological developmental of children.¹¹ Culture is the shared values, norms, and beliefs that we hold because of our group membership,¹² plus the quality of life that we experience as a function of our income.

According to psychologist Jonathan Tudge, it's through their interactions with people within their cultural group that children “learn what is expected of them, the types of activities considered appropriate or inappropriate for them, how they are expected to engage in these activities, the ways other people will deal with them, and the ways in which they are expected to deal with others.”¹³ In this way, culture shapes our development by influencing how we adapt to our social and physical environment.

Culture also shapes how we adapt (and sometimes have difficulty adapting) to school. Over four decades ago, Ronald Gallimore and his colleague Roland Tharp provided a well-documented record of this through their study of the Kamehameha Elementary Education Project (KEEP). KEEP was founded to address the lag in literacy development that was observed among Native Hawaiian children when they entered Honolulu public schools.¹⁴ To address this, the project developed a reading program for kindergarten through 3rd grade students that was designed to be responsive to the culture and language of Native Hawaiian students.

This research found that classroom teaching is more effective if it is “culturally compatible.” They noted that culturally compatible teaching reflected a concern for three types of educational experiences students were engaged in outside of their classroom (what they referred to as “cognition”):

 the manner in which students interacted in social settings (social organization);

 the conversational patterns that students typically demonstrated (sociolinguistics); and

 the factors that influenced their feelings of self-efficacy (motivation).¹⁵

When the pedagogical practices of teachers were responsive to the culture and language of the students (such as by including more peer-to-peer activities and providing students with more opportunities to learn at their own pace), they reported greater levels of self-efficacy and motivation. These increases were directly linked to increases in student achievement. As a result, research in this area finds that the most effective teachers transform their pedagogy to make it responsive to the cultural experiences of their students.¹⁶

Some researchers suggest that one way in which teachers can respond to the cultural experiences of students is by actively soliciting their voice.¹⁷ In light of this, several studies have highlighted the importance of learning students’ perspectives on what they feel makes teachers effective. For example, almost 30 years ago, a study by education scholar Etta Ruth Hollins and her colleague Kathleen Spencer regarding students’ views on their experiences in school found that positive relationships between teachers and students increased academic achievement. They also found that teachers’ responsiveness to students’ personal lives generated positive feelings that led to greater student effort. Additionally, they found that students preferred teachers who enabled them to use experiences from their personal lives in completing assignments and this led to increased engagement in class discussions.¹⁸

Similarly, when Tyrone Howard, a noted scholar in the field of culturally responsive teaching, asked African American students to discuss what made their teachers effective, they reported that the most effective teachers established a sense of family and community within their classrooms, displayed a genuine level of caring for their students, and consistently reaffirmed their belief that all students were capable of achieving success.¹⁹

Several more recent studies confirm that students consistently judge a teacher's effectiveness based on how much they perceive the teacher to know about them and how much the teacher creates a classroom environment that responds to them as individuals.²⁰ Effective teachers are viewed as being able to develop a rapport with students that makes them feel connected to their teachers.

David Etienne, 16, attended extremely strict schools in Haiti. He shared a cultural background (though not a social class background) with his teachers, followed the rules, and learned to repeat what he had been taught. It was only when he immigrated to the United States and he experienced more responsive styles of teaching that he realized what he was missing. He writes:

[In Haiti] our fear of punishment pushed us to learn whatever we were assigned, so in a way, the teachers were effective. We did what we had to do, whether it was memorizing a passage, solving a math problem, or learning vocabulary words.

But looking back, I see that I never grew mentally in that school. They didn't teach us to think broadly or to be creative. Instead, I was always either doing what I was directed to do, or sitting back waiting for more directions. My classmates and I were taught what we needed to know to survive inside a classroom—things like dates and events in history—but not a lot that would help me survive in the world.

When I came to the United States I didn't know what to expect. On my first day of school in New York, I met my new teacher, Mr. Jean Pierre, who also was Haitian. He greeted me with “Sa kap fèt la, Boss?” which means “How are you doing, Boss?” in Creole.

That short sentence alone told me a lot. Normally in Haiti, teachers only speak French to students, because those who speak French are looked upon as superior. But Mr. Jean Pierre spoke pure Creole with me, and that made me feel that the person I was going to spend my days with at this new school would be able to understand me.

Of course, some teachers mistake “developing rapport” with lowering their standards or spending inordinate amounts of time socializing with students. But students do want to learn, and while they will go along with a teacher who skimps on standards, most students want a teacher who has both high expectations and finds ways to make them feel seen. Here's how Mohammed Hussain describes that balance:

Mr. Seltzer, my 8th grade teacher, was the embodiment of high standards. Tests were difficult. Pop quizzes could be given at any time He gave us lots of homework and expected us to do it. Throughout the year, we wrote frequently—outlines, research papers, book reports—and Mr. Seltzer expected us to produce quality work.

When I saw my low grades at the start of the year—in the 70s, when I was used to 90s—I realized that I could easily fail the class.

If you believe the stereotypes, Mr. Seltzer sounds like the kind of teacher that students would loathe. But Mohammed describes why that wasn't the case:

[Though] Mr. Seltzer held us to extremely high standards … still he was never boorish or a jerk to us. We could see his affection and regard for us despite his sternness. He once commented to me that he had many children, and it was not until later that I realized he was talking about his students. To Mr. Seltzer, we were his children and he expected us to be amazing and not disappoint him; just what he would expect of his own children. In turn, all of his students—those who loved to learn and even those who were not particularly motivated to do so—tried their best to live up to his standards.

[In the end] I got an 80 average. Though this was lower than I was used to, it meant more to me than a 90 from another teacher. An 80 from Mr. Seltzer was a real accomplishment.

Another important challenge in understanding how students develop is that people in the fields of education and psychology have relied (and often continue to rely) too much on theories of psychological development that are based on White European cultural norms.²¹ Over three decades ago, education scholar Martin Haberman offered a prescient caution that “teachers committed to a theory of development will hold expectations of what is normal and typical which they will inevitably transform into what is desirable. They will then develop and hold expectations for preferred behavior which supports their particular theory and makes them insensitive to other explanations and understandings.”²²

Because of this tendency to define White cultural development as normative and desirable, the development of BIPOC students may be judged using an inappropriate standard. Differences in their development may be viewed as deficiencies that are attributed to race, culture, or ethnicity. Therefore, to be more effective in supporting the learning needs of all students, we need to be cautious in how those theories are applied so that we use them to inform but not constrain our teaching.