It’s Not Hard Work; It’s Heart Work: Strategies of Effective, Award-Winning Culturally Responsive Teachers Abiola Farinde-Wu 1 • Crystal P. Glover 2 • Nakeshia N. Williams 3 Published online: 8 February 2017 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017 Abstract With an increasingly diverse, K-12 public school student population, adequately teaching and instructing all student demographic groups is a pertinent educational issue. As such, there has been an ensuing need for teachers to develop the knowledge, dispositions, and pedagogical skills and competencies necessary to teach children from diverse backgrounds. Acknowledging this need, this qualitative analysis examines the teaching strategies that seven award-winning teachers of students in urban schools use to cultivate culturally responsive classroom envi- ronments. Considering the disparaging academic achievement of many U.S. public school students, culturally responsive teaching may assist in closing enduring achievement gaps. To this end, this study’s findings indicate four major themes that may inform the classroom pedagogical practices of practitioners. Keywords Award-winning teachers Á Pedagogical practices Á Culturally responsive teaching & Abiola Farinde-Wu afarinde@pitt.edu Crystal P. Glover gloverc@winthrop.edu Nakeshia N. Williams nnwilliams1@ncat.edu 1 Center for Urban Education, University of Pittsburgh, 5115 Wesley W. Posvar Hall, 230 South Bouquet Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA 2 Early Childhood Education, Curriculum and Pedagogy Department, Richard W. Riley College of Education, Winthrop University, 232-P Withers/WTS Building, Rock Hill, SC 29733, USA 3 College of Education, Department of Educator Preparation, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Greensboro, NC, USA 123 Urban Rev (2017) 49:279–299 DOI 10.1007/s11256-017-0401-5