This literature review is written for teachers, school leaders and teacher educators who are working to strengthen culturally responsive schooling in Australia. The review brings together three interconnected fields of scholarship: culturally responsive pedagogies (CRPs), critical action research and educational leadership, to develop a coherent conceptual foundation for an Australian approach to culturally responsive schooling. 

Across the review, culturally responsive pedagogies are positioned as the primary site of educational transformation. Drawing on a substantial body of work, including an earlier review Toward an Australian culturally responsive pedagogy, this review articulates five key ideas for a culturally responsive practice that frame CRP as relational, context-sensitive and dialogic. 

Recognising that such pedagogy cannot be learned or enacted in isolation, it examines how modes of professional learning need to support teachers to inquire into their practice, work collaboratively, and respond dynamically to their local cultural and linguistic contexts. Critical action research is explored as a mechanism through which these aims are realised, offering teachers an approach for adapting their practice in partnership with students, colleagues and communities. 

Finally, the review situates educational leadership as vital for shaping the conditions necessary for culturally responsive pedagogies and teacher inquiry to flourish. It draws on critical leadership studies to argue that culturally responsive school leaders do more than administer: they cultivate school cultures, professional learning environments and organisational priorities that support sustained pedagogical transformation. In bringing these fields together, the review offers a conceptual pathway for understanding what culturally responsive schooling entails and how Australian schools might move towards it in meaningful and systemic ways.