In recent decades, culturally responsive teaching (CRT) has emerged as a central framework in education research, particularly in response to increasing cultural diversity, migration, and persistent educational inequalities (Gay, 2018; Ladson-Billings, 1995). Teacher education programs increasingly emphasize the importance of developing teachers’ knowledge of cultural diversity, equity, and students’ socio-cultural backgrounds. However, despite this growing emphasis, research consistently demonstrates that possessing such knowledge does not automatically lead to equitable pedagogical action in classroom practice (Cochran-Smith et al., 2016; Sleeter, 2012).

This persistent discrepancy highlights a core problem in contemporary education research: the gap between knowing and acting. Teachers may recognize cultural differences, acknowledge structural inequalities, and endorse equity-oriented values, yet still struggle to enact culturally responsive practices in their daily professional decisions (Villegas & Lucas, 2002). Existing explanations often focus on individual deficiencies, such as lack of skills or insufficient training. While relevant, these explanations risk obscuring the broader institutional, epistemic, and professional conditions that shape teachers’ capacity to act on what they know (Biesta, 2010).

Within teacher education, this knowing–acting gap becomes particularly salient. Pre-service and in-service teachers are frequently positioned as holders of diversity-related knowledge, yet they are given limited opportunities to develop professional judgment for acting under uncertainty, negotiating competing demands, and responding to context-specific challenges (Biesta et al., 2015). As a result, culturally responsive teaching risks remaining a normative aspiration rather than a sustainable pedagogical practice.

Although the literature on culturally responsive education is extensive, there is still limited empirical and conceptual work that explicitly frames CRT as a knowing–acting dilemma. Addressing this gap is crucial for education research that seeks not only to produce knowledge about equity and diversity, but also to understand how such knowledge becomes actionable in practice. By conceptualizing culturally responsive teaching through the knowing–acting relationship, this study directly responds to the ECER 2026 theme and contributes to ongoing debates on the changing conditions and potentials of education research.

This study adopts a qualitative research design to explore culturally responsive teaching as a knowing–acting dilemma in teacher education. Given the study’s focus on teachers’ interpretations, professional judgments, and lived experiences, a qualitative approach is considered appropriate for capturing the complexity and contextual nature of the knowing–acting relationship (Creswell & Poth, 2018). Participants consisted of pre-service and in-service teachers working in culturally diverse educational contexts. Purposeful sampling was used to ensure variation in teaching experience, educational level, field of study and exposure to culturally diverse student populations (Patton, 2015). This sampling strategy enabled an in-depth examination of how teachers with different professional trajectories make sense of cultural diversity and equity-oriented practice. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, which allowed participants to articulate their understandings of culturally responsive teaching, describe concrete classroom situations, and reflect on the challenges of translating diversity-related knowledge into pedagogical action. The interview protocol was designed to elicit both cognitive (knowing) and practical (acting) dimensions of teachers’ experiences, including moments of uncertainty, constraint, and professional decision-making. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis, following an iterative and reflexive process (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Initial coding focused on participants’ descriptions of cultural knowledge, equity commitments, and classroom practices. Through subsequent cycles of analysis, codes were refined into broader themes capturing tensions between knowing and acting, such as institutional constraints, professional identity and agency, and contextual uncertainty. Throughout the analysis, attention was paid to how teachers positioned themselves as moral and professional actors within existing structural and political conditions. Ethical considerations were addressed by obtaining informed consent from all participants, ensuring confidentiality, and anonymizing all identifying information. Reflexivity was maintained throughout the research process, with the researchers critically reflecting on their positionality and its potential influence on data interpretation (Berger, 2015). This methodological approach enables nuanced understanding of culturally responsive teaching.

This study is expected to contribute to education research by offering a nuanced understanding of culturally responsive teaching as a knowing–acting dilemma rather than a straightforward issue of implementation or teacher competence. It is anticipated that the findings will demonstrate that teachers’ difficulties in enacting culturally responsive practices cannot be adequately explained by a lack of awareness or commitment to equity. Instead, the study is expected to reveal how teachers’ actions are shaped by a complex interplay of epistemic, institutional, and professional conditions, which lead us to examine how institutional structures function as a form of habitus in the Bourdieusian sense (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Reay, 1998).First, the findings are expected to show that teachers possess substantial conceptual knowledge about cultural diversity and equity, often articulated through normative commitments to inclusion and social justice. However, this knowledge is likely to remain fragile when teachers encounter uncertainty, competing expectations, and contextual constraints in everyday classroom practice. Such findings highlight the limits of knowledge-centered approaches in teacher education that prioritize awareness without sufficiently addressing the conditions of action. Second, the study is expected to identify key tensions that mediate the transition from knowing to acting, including accountability pressures, curriculum demands, institutional norms, and concerns about professional risk. These tensions are likely to influence how teachers exercise agency and professional judgment, particularly in culturally diverse settings where pedagogical decisions are ethically and politically charged. Third, the findings are expected to contribute conceptually by reframing culturally responsive teaching as a dynamic and situated practice that requires ongoing judgment, reflexivity, and negotiation rather than the application of fixed strategies. By foregrounding the knowing–acting relationship, the study is anticipated to challenge deficit-oriented discourses that position teachers as failing to implement equity-oriented practices.

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