How school belongingness in diverse students moderates student perceptions of teachers' cultural humility in predicting student-teacher working alliance

Student-teacher relationships and school belongingness are both strong predictors for students' academic success (Goodenow & Grady, 1993; Hattie, 2009). Experiences related to their cultural identities also inform how they perceive their educational environment (Kutsyuruba et al., 2015) and may also predict academic success. Although current literature supports all three constructs as separate predictors of academic success, the current study examined the relationship between student perceptions of their teacher's cultural humility and student-teacher working alliance, with student perceptions of school belonging as a moderator. Sixth-grade students from an urban, central Arkansas middle school (n = 334) considered a teacher with whom they had prolonged contact (e.g., two interactions a day, including mentoring and academic instruction), and responded to questions from three scales, the Cultural Humility Scale (predictor), the Classroom Working Alliance Inventory (outcome), and the Psychological Sense of School Membership (moderator). Results showed that student perceptions of teacher's cultural humility predicted student-teacher working alliance and that this relationship was slightly stronger for those students with low levels of school belongingness. The importance of all three variables in understanding student success has implications for teacher and school psychologist training programs.