Because learning and development are relational and highly context sensitive, it is important that all students experience environments of trust and belonging. Warm, caring, supportive teacher–student relationships are linked to better school performance and engagement, greater emotional regulation, social competence, and willingness to take on challenges.1 Strong relationships have biological as well as affective significance. Brain architecture is developed by the presence of warm, consistent, attuned relationships; positive experiences; and positive perceptions of these experiences.2 Such relationships help develop the emotional, social, behavioral, and cognitive competencies that are foundational to learning.

Children’s ability to learn and take risks is enhanced when they feel emotionally and psychologically safe; it is undermined when they feel threatened. A meta-analysis of 99 studies found that the affective quality of teacher–student relationships was significantly related to student engagement and achievement. Students often placed at risk in school and society—children of color, those from low-income families, and those with learning differences—were harmed most by negative teacher affect and benefited most from positive relationships with teachers.3

Students learn best when they can connect what happens in school to their cultural contexts and experiences, when their teachers see their families and communities as assets and are responsive to their strengths and needs, and when their environment is identity safe, reinforcing their sense of value and belonging. This is especially important given the societal and school-based challenges many children, especially those living in adverse conditions, experience. For all these reasons, and because children develop through individual trajectories shaped by their unique traits and experiences, teachers need to know students well to create productive learning opportunities. Building highly favorable conditions into the environments in which children grow and learn—including trust, connections to children and families, and supports—improves equity of experience and opportunity. All of these understandings are key to the development of the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of equitable educators.

Because learning is relational, it is paramount that teachers develop the mindsets to support all students well and equitably. These mindsets start with an authentic curiosity about oneself and others, as well as a positive disposition about learning and equity that supports compassion; care; an acknowledgment that everyone holds evolving beliefs and biases that influence decision-making; and an acceptance and honoring of students’ backgrounds, experiences, and social identities. They also include dispositions and skills for engaging in trauma-informed and healing-oriented practices for students who face adversity.

Equitable educators cultivate dispositions within themselves and their students that include empathy; social, emotional, and cognitive skills that support learning; cultural competence; and healthy identity development, as well as personal and professional identities rooted in these capacities. Among the cognitive skills they support are those productive for learning, such as executive function and growth mindset, as well as the problem-solving, perseverance, and resilience that enable children and adults to function in the face of daily challenges.

Preparation programs also need to support teacher candidates to develop the skills to create classroom communities that honor all learners, helping children negotiate relationships with peers and adults with care and respect. This includes learning to use restorative practices to support inclusion and community building; support classroom learning environments; and replace punitive, coercive, and exclusionary disciplinary approaches with proactive development of community caring, coping mechanisms, and conflict resolution skills that help students develop empathy for one another and an understanding of their own behavior. Such practices result in fewer and less racially disparate suspensions and expulsions, fewer disciplinary referrals, improved school climate, higher-quality teacher–student relationships, and improved academic achievement across elementary and secondary classrooms.6 Restorative approaches are also grounded in ameliorating long-standing inequities in schools and society by building safe, inclusive learning environments where consistent, caring relationships can thrive and every young person is valued and affirmed.7

The illustration in Figure 5 provides two very different scenarios that show how restorative policies can make a difference in outcomes for students.8 Teaching how to implement and advocate for this approach by modeling it for and with future teachers, which enables them to experience it for themselves, is important.

The following reflection from a teacher’s observation of restorative justice practices for the first time illustrates the power of the approach:

Reflective educators can seek information and help students solve problems when challenges emerge—which contributes not only to motivation but also to an asset-based orientation toward families, communities, and students. Educators can also focus on their own role in creating conditions conducive to learning in both their classrooms and the school as a whole. Schools can trigger rather than ameliorate social identity threats that undermine students’ confidence and performance when they group or track students in ways that convey messages about perceived ability, deliver stereotypical messages associated with group status, or emphasize ability rather than effort (e.g., “innate intelligence” vs. “hard work”) in their judgments about students and their attributions of causes of success.11

Being able to develop the skills and dispositions of an equitable educator requires that teachers understand the historical, social, economic, and political contexts of the United States as well as the more localized communities in which they teach. Further, it is important that they understand how these contextual realities interact and directly impact the experiences of students, their understanding of themselves, their perceptions of their social identities, and their learning. Some of this learning may come from reading scholars whose social and historical research raises consciousness and awareness.12 More of it may come from direct, guided inquiry into both school settings and community settings in which candidates are placed.13

Preparation programs need to help teacher candidates develop an understanding of equity issues and dilemmas that arise in classrooms and schools. An important part of teacher preparation is helping candidates build a commitment to engage—and a skill set to tackle—hard questions and situations that involve issues such as race, class, and power. Both teacher educators and candidates should seek to understand how these issues impact their understanding of themselves, their positionality, their understanding of privilege and how that has affected their experiences, and how these understandings influence their views of students’ ability and learning. This understanding and skill set—often developed through autobiographical inquiry into experiences of privilege, discrimination, and inequality14—can help facilitate the acknowledgment and reduction of bias and create more equitable teaching practices and learning environments. A result of such preparation is using this lens to critically analyze curriculum choices. Table 1 provides an example of a practical scaffolding tool to learn these skills.

When educators develop an understanding of how to critically examine curriculum and teaching practices and the ways these may inadvertently promote bias and marginalization, they move further toward eliminating inequity. This understanding is required of teacher education faculty as well as candidates if it is to be infused in the preparation program.

These dispositions are supported and strengthened when teachers organize and build partnerships with families, community members, and other educators around children’s learning strengths and needs. This requires preparation programs to engage the local community in a collaborative community of practice that can support student learning and build teachers’ knowledge and capacity to approach students, families, and communities from an asset-based orientation. Asset-based dispositions, mindsets, and practices highlight what students bring to the classroom that can be used to build learning opportunities, rather than focusing on students’ perceived deficits. In order to engage productively in such communities of practice, teachers need to develop culturally sensitive, respectful, and opportunity-centered listening and questioning skills that enable them to learn about their students’ lives and learning strategies in order to create more coherent, well-reinforced learning opportunities between home and school. These, in turn, can help create environments where students feel culturally respected and emotionally and intellectually safe. This type of shared learning can occur only when preparation programs have authentic, reciprocal relationships with partner districts, families, youth, and communities. (See also Supportive Developmental Relationships in Communities of Practice).

These skills, knowledge, and dispositions build the foundation on which preparation programs help candidates learn how to translate knowledge of students’ lives, experiences, and prior learning into rich, relevant tasks with appropriate scaffolding and supports. To engage in this type of culturally responsive pedagogy, teacher candidates need to know how to surface and build on prior experience, understand how children are thinking, and construct tasks that are approachable and motivating. Using a “funds of knowledge” framework,15 candidates can learn how to captivate children’s interest and foster deep learning by linking experiences and skills from children’s everyday lives and cultures to classroom instruction.16

Teachers should think of their learning community as including students, families, community members, and other experts who have knowledge of students and their learning. Teacher candidates can benefit from learning how to access students’ own views about their learning through conferencing, students’ reflections on their work, exit tickets, group discussions, and other means.

Schools that create meaningful relationships with families and actively engage them in having a voice, programming, and the learning environment increase student achievement and create a positive culture. Teaching must be a collaborative endeavor that taps into the expertise of all members of a community.17 Family and community members have expert knowledge of their children and lived experiences that teachers can learn about and use in their lesson planning and instruction.

Teacher candidates can develop an asset-based view of students and families by engaging with them in the context of community-based organizations and services in the place where they are student teaching. In some programs, candidates complete clinical placements in after-school or recreation programs in order to experience families and the community in a different way than school allows. Candidates can also hear from well-regarded community organizers and leaders of grassroots organizations who are trying to improve living conditions and spend time studying the local community. By studying the sociopolitical histories of the neighborhoods in which they conduct their clinical placements, preservice teachers become familiar with community assets (e.g., churches, community-based organizations and activities) and challenges (e.g., environmental pollution that breeds health concerns) and learn to appreciate the resilience of those who live there. Preservice teachers can also learn ways to make the curriculum culturally relevant by connecting subject matter to community-based contexts and causes.

Arts Backpacks Program

Likewise, teachers can offer family members tools and strategies to connect in-school learning to students’ everyday learning and problem-solving at home in English and their native language—for example, sending home bilingual books or keeping in mind families’ literacy and language proficiency levels.18 The more candidates learn to support students’ academic development outside of school, the more students can be ready to learn once at school.

One example of how to support students outside of school can be found in Art Backpack, a family–school–university intervention at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Newark, NJ.

Finally, because inequities are often baked into school structures and systems, it is important for preparation programs to enable teachers to understand and negotiate more equitable school policies. Candidates need to be ready to think about, act on, and navigate within the sociopolitical contexts of schools to advocate for more just and equitable opportunities and outcomes for their students. In order to develop as equitable educators, it is critical that teachers develop self-awareness and skills of inquiry to guide continuous learning. These skills will help teachers identify and eliminate inequity-creating and -sustaining routines and practices. The results of a set of equity-oriented inquiries that were intended to help candidates in one teacher education program develop these skills are described by Stanford University student teachers in Learning to Teach for Social Justice.19 These inquiries can include reading case studies of the learning experiences of English learners, students with disabilities, and others who are often marginalized in school; shadowing a student through a full day of school to understand their experience; examining a school’s allocation of curriculum opportunities across classrooms and tracks; interrogating cultural assumptions in both teacher education and student teaching classrooms; and reflecting on the results of lessons aiming to be culturally affirming.

Student-Centered Inquiry and Reflection The vignette in Student-Centered Inquiry and Reflection describes a student-centered inquiry process grounded in video analysis.