In public education, the opportunity gap, or the arbitrary circumstances in which students are born, limiting access to resources both inside and outside of school, in 8th grade mathematics by race, ethnicity, income and English learner status continues to persist. School leaders have implemented programs, adopted new curriculums, instituted various practices and strategies in the classrooms to mitigate the opportunity gap. It is believed when marginalized students are given the proper resources and opportunities, all students are capable of succeeding. One potential strategy to narrow the opportunity gap is culturally responsive teaching. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore teaching practices, specifically to the extent in which practices are culturally responsive. Furthermore, in this study I examined how these practices related to cultivating student-teacher relationships. Research questions were answered by conducting and analyzing observations and interviews in the fall semester with three 8th grade mathematics teachers in an urban, diverse populated Southern California middle school. During the observations, Culturally Responsive Instruction Observation Protocol (CRIOP) was used. It is devised of eight pillars but only seven of the pillars were used for this study due to limitations. Within the seven pillars, there are 31 culturally responsive indicators that were used as evidence based on the observations. Throughout the qualitative data analysis process, there were four overarching themes that emerged from the observations and interviews. The four themes are (a) personalized language, (b) humanistic approach, (c) communication and (d) collaboration. The data collected consistently connected with all four themes. The pillars that are associated with these themes are (a) classroom caring and teacher disposition, (b) discourse/ instructional conversation, and (c) pedagogy/ instructional practices. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]