Can supportive teacher-student relationships help students navigate feelings of exclusion, and, in doing so, shape the broader relationship between students’ backgrounds and their educational trajectories? 

In earlier chapters of my monograph, I have explored how Nova School – a multicultural Swedish secondary school at the center of the study – sustains a hidden curriculum rooted in a shared immigrant identity. This identity helps students make sense of experiences of ‘difference’ and of belonging to a stigmatized group. In this chapter, I shift focus to how the school also, on the other hand, addresses these challenges through a supportive approach and specifically through strong teacher-student relationships. Using ethnographic research methods, including classroom observations and student interviews, I highlight how these relationships are characterized by teachers’ active engagement, sensitivity to individual circumstances, and the use of attentive practices and communication strategies. Besides helping the school days run smoothly, these efforts also convey a deeper message that students interpret as being seen and valued. This stands in contrast to the detachment students have felt in previous school settings and continue to experience due to personal challenges and the stigma associated with living in a marginalized neighborhood. Such support seems to foster a sense of safety and belonging, which students describe as important for coming to school and engaging with their teachers. In this way, Nova School cultivates what can be understood as an ‘activating school culture,’ enabling school participation among its group of students.