Creating a comfortable, inclusive classroom for students from disadvantaged communities requires teachers to actively value their social and cultural identity, not merely focus on academics in isolation.
Encouraging participation in cultural activities helps such students express and take pride in their own identity and background, building confidence and a sense of belonging — this genuinely helps.
Inviting successful persons from disadvantaged communities as role models shows students that people from similar backgrounds can achieve success, which is motivating and helps them feel represented and valued — this too genuinely helps.
Genuinely trying to understand the struggles and difficulties these students face, such as economic hardship, social discrimination, or lack of resources at home, allows a teacher to respond with empathy and appropriate support — this is essential and helpful.
In contrast, telling students to concentrate on study only ignores their socio-emotional needs, their struggles outside academics, and their need to feel seen and included as whole persons — it isolates them further rather than making them comfortable, since it dismisses the very factors, such as social exclusion, lack of confidence, and cultural gap, that make them uncomfortable in the first place.
Therefore, asking them to concentrate on study only is the measure that does not help such students feel comfortable in the classroom.