SDG 4 Through Relational Pedagogy: Latino Students’ Experiences of Belonging, Mentorship, and Inclusion

This article reinterprets findings from a previously completed qualitative bounded case study of seven Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Mexican college students from the Bronx through the framework of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4). No new empirical data were collected for the present article. The original study examined how participants experienced meaningful teacher–student relationships across their educational journeys. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) serves as the principal interpretive framework, while familioso, used here as an emerging culturally grounded relational lens informed by familismo, helps illuminate family-like qualities of trust, belonging, mentorship, advocacy, mutual responsibility, and sustained support within educational relationships. The original study identified six themes concerning mentorship and identity development, relational learning communities, negotiated authority and authenticity, family-like relational structures, family cultural values, and cultural identity. Reinterpreted through SDG 4, these findings suggest that educational quality is experienced not only through structural conditions and academic opportunities but also through interpersonal relationships that can support inclusion, participation, recognition, and belonging. This reinterpretation positions culturally responsive teacher–student relationships as one relational dimension of educational quality that complements, rather than replaces, structural approaches to advancing equitable and inclusive education.