“It's Not A Bad School, It's Just The Teachers”: Understanding The Role Of Teacher Relationships And Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In Black Students’ Perceived Mattering
Date
2025
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
The Black Lives Matter movement has emphasized addressing Black students’ experiences in school and inspired educators and administrators to look beyond test scores to evaluate whether Black students are receiving interpersonal support, feeling integral to their school, and experiencing a sense of “mattering”. The culture gap between the predominately white educator workforce and the increasingly racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse student population raises questions about the efficacy of their pedagogy for all students. By examining Black students’ articulations of their relationships with educators, experiences of culturally relevant pedagogy, and perceptions of mattering, this study seeks to identify practices that facilitate positive school experiences for Black students. The current study explores the educational experiences of five adolescent Black boys, all attending the same urban high school, in a mid-Atlantic state. Data was collected using a qualitative approach to examine their experiences related to school and mattering through semi-structured, one-on-one interviews, and analyzed using a deductive theoretically grounded and inductive thematic analysis-based approach. I found five themes, titled using the participants’ voiced insights, across the participants’ narratives: “They invest in our success”, “They look out for us”, “They humanize us”, “They don’t care about us”, and “We want to reach our full potential”. I discuss the findings in terms of their integration with previous research and theory and explore their implications and directions for future research. This study addresses a critical gap in research by centering the voices of Black students to examine their lived experiences and perspectives on educational practices that directly impact them. It also intentionally foregrounds mattering theory with culturally relevant pedagogy, demonstrating how they are intertwined, and can be used together to better support students. This adds to the body of literature on effective teaching for Black adolescent boys.
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Keywords
Adolescents, Black boys, Black students, Culturally relevant pedagogy, Mattering, Teacher relationships