Lecture room as tapestry: weaving culture, curiosity and learning together

Culture profoundly shapes how students learn, participate and make sense of academic knowledge. Walk into any seminar room and you will find students who speak different languages, come from different schooling traditions and hold different understandings of authority, knowledge and academic success. They may be first-generation or working-class students, mature learners, care-leavers, students from rural or coastal towns or students from multilingual or multicultural households. All, not just international students, will have experienced the world through distinct cultural, political and economic lenses. Yet much of UK university teaching still treats culture as peripheral, rather than integral, to the pedagogical process.

Culturally inclusive pedagogy then must move beyond generic “internationalisation” and instead ask educators to redesign learning environments that work with, rather than ignore, the cultural diversity in our classrooms.

Here are practical, culturally inclusive approaches to use in everyday teaching practice, regardless of discipline.

Articulate cultural assumptions behind your teaching

Seminar debate is often framed as engagement, while academic writing is associated with certainty. Students from high-context communication cultures may view direct challenge as disrespectful, while those from collectivist backgrounds might be unfamiliar with competitive individual assessment. Yet in education, values are far from universal.

• Who are we when we teach? Why ESOL educators need space to explore identity
• Spotlight guide: Making university safe for all
• Work with students for an inclusive university culture

Inclusive approaches can start with examining and articulating the cultural norms that underpin our teaching. I have learned the importance of explaining these expectations rather than assuming students understand them. Once, I asked a student why they rarely spoke in seminars, and they explained that interrupting another person would be considered rude in their cultural context. Their silence was not disengagement; it was respect. 

Now, at the start of a module, I explain aspects such as why constructive challenge is valued, what it looks like and how students can step into a disagreement without breaching courtesy. Making these norms explicit levels the playing field for everyone.

Normalise multiple ways of participating

If the only acceptable form of participation is confident verbal contribution in English, we risk interpreting students’ silence as a lack of engagement. Yet for some, speaking up in a group may be culturally discouraged, linguistically intimidating or simply uncomfortable, particularly for multilingual students, those from high-context communication cultures or neurodivergent learners.

As lecturers, we can widen how students participate. Digital tools and discussion boards allow students to contribute without speaking aloud. Written reflections, short polls, group note-taking and anonymous Q&A spaces can bring forward voices that might otherwise remain unheard. By diversifying participation, we create learning environments where insight is not dependent on personality, accent or cultural familiarity.

Rethink assessment design with cultural difference in mind

Assessment is often where cultural inequities appear most sharply. UK assessment tends to privilege written argument, individual competition and confidence in academic English. Culturally inclusive assessment, however, recognises that students may demonstrate deep understanding through different modes of expression. Varied formats, such as presentations or reflective commentary alongside essays, allow students to draw on their strengths and cultural resources.

A dual-format task that combines video and written work, for example, can enable students to draw on cultural and communicative strengths such as visual storytelling, spoken explanation and analytical writing. In this way, students’ cultural identities are enriched, rather than complicated, in their demonstration of learning.

Teach students academic norms

For students new to UK higher education, whether international or home students from non-academic backgrounds, what determines success at university may not be clear. They may not know how to write critically, how to reference correctly, how to interrogate a reading or how to participate “appropriately”. 

Teaching students explicitly how to meet expectations removes the guessing game. Formative feedback on early drafts of assignments is a way to do this. Instead of simply correcting their work, teachers can highlight where their argument begins to develop, where evidence could be strengthened, where analysis needs to be more explicit. This process helps students see how academic writing works in practice, not just whether they have done it “correctly”. 

Some academics can go further and provide annotated exemplars alongside the feedback, which helps remove the mystique surrounding academic culture.

Create culturally safe spaces 

Inviting cultural perspectives can enrich classroom dialogue but it must be done with care. Too often, students are unintentionally positioned as representatives of entire regions, ethnicities or cultural groups, rather than as individuals with unique experiences.

Culturally inclusive pedagogy centres voluntary, not performative, engagement. Academics can invite, rather than expect, students to share cultural examples. This approach prevents tokenisation and reduces the emotional labour placed on minoritised students but still allows the class to benefit from culturally diverse perspectives.

Academics, too, should listen to students’ perspectives, being open to critique when cultural assumptions might have shaped interpretation and treating students as partners in shaping the classroom environment. As culturally humble educators, we build from curiosity rather than certainty.

Why inclusive pedagogy is central to excellent teaching

Culturally inclusive pedagogy asks us to view diversity as something that deepens learning for all students. It challenges us to examine the unspoken norms embedded in UK higher education, to redesign participation and assessment with intention, and to create classroom spaces where students’ identities and experiences enhance, rather than complicate, academic work.

In a sector that recruits globally and aspires to global influence, culturally inclusive pedagogy is not optional. It is central to excellent teaching. When we recognise culture as a source of insight, complexity and meaning, we create classrooms where students not only learn but belong, and where belonging becomes a catalyst for deeper intellectual engagement.

Chipo Simbi is senior teaching fellow at the University of Southampton Business School.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week, sign up for the Campus newsletter.