Teachers' Structuring of Culturally Responsive Social Relations and Secondary Students’ Experience of Warm Demand

Abstract

Students who experience teacher warm demand (i.e., caring and high expectations) are typically more engaged and successful at school. Yet, relative to White students, students of color tend to report more distant relationships with their White teachers. Leveraging data from 179 6th–9th grade Measures of Effective Teaching project classroom videos, we tested whether teachers’ facilitation of culturally responsive social relations was associated with higher warm demand, and whether these social relations moderated associations between race and warm demand. Results showed that teachers’ promotion of culturally responsive social relations was associated with warm demand, and that this was magnified for White teachers in relation to their discipline practices. Findings suggest that taking a culturally responsive approach to facilitating classroom social relations is critical for teachers seeking to improve students’ experiences of warm demand.