The Formation of Cross-Cultural Teacher-Student Relationships: Four Influential Factors

• In Event: Educational Relationships in Secondary and Higher Education Contexts: Race, Culture, and the Role of Care

Abstract

There is broad agreement in educational research that the relationships teachers and students form with one another are highly consequential for learning (see, for example, Cornelius-White, 2007; Roorda et al. 2011, 2017). The fields of relational pedagogy (Hinsdale, 2016; Sidorkin, 2023) and care ethics (Noddings, 2013; Tronto, 1993) have greatly expanded our understanding of the nature of educational relationships over several decades. Yet much remains to be learned, particularly regarding relationships at the secondary level (Yu et al., 2018) and those that are cross-cultural in nature (Fruja Amthor & Roxas, 2016). Furthermore, scholars have sharply critiqued the harm that arises when relationships and care are enacted with a blindness to cultural difference (Fraser-Burgess, 2020; Quek, 2022). Sitting at the nexus of relation, education, and culture, the research presented here aims to illuminate important factors in secondary ESOL teachers’ development of cross-cultural relationships with students who are learning English and who are all too often racially and linguistically othered by the educational system at large. It also points to the possibilities a deep understanding of such relationships can bring to the educational enterprise.

This paper draws on findings from a multiple-case ethnography (Stake, 2006; Wolcott, 2008) of eight secondary ESOL teachers working in Virginia. Each participant sat for three 90-minute in-depth interviews (Seidman, 2019) over the videoconferencing software Zoom to discuss how they experience and understand the cross-cultural relationships they form with students. I thematically coded transcripts through an ethnographic lens, analyzing each participant individually and comparing cases to determine broader themes (Stake, 2006; Yin, 2018).

I find four factors are influential in the formation of cross-cultural educational relationships. The first is time. Teachers recount extended time with students atypical of the secondary experience in the United States, working with them over multiple years and multiple courses. The second factor is a set of cross-cultural dispositions held by teachers. These include an orientation towards accepting difference, an empathic outlook towards the unique challenges faced by students entering a new culture, and an aversion to deficit thinking. The third factor is a mix of caring teacher actions that respect and affirm students’ cultural identities, such as involvement with students outside the classroom, offering small gestures of support, and integrating into coursework opportunities to explore identity and the immigrant experience. The fourth factor is a phenomenon I call “parallel status positioning.” Students who are English learners are positioned at a low status within society at large (Arzubiaga et al., 2009; Doucet, 2017), and ESOL teachers are positioned at a low status within the teaching profession (Jaffe-Walter, 2018; Olsen, 2008). Interviews reveal that recognition of this mutual positioning leads teachers to act in solidarity with students. Taken together, these four factors offer a model of how teachers can form strong relationships with students from different cultural backgrounds. If school systems were to prioritize the traits and pedagogical moves prized by these teachers, they would expand possibilities for a humanizing and liberatory educational praxis for all students.

Author

• David R. M. Saavedra, Virginia Commonwealth University