TeacherChild Relationship Quality and Preschool Childrens Behavioral Adjustment:

1

• Teacher-Child Relationship Quality and Preschool
  Childrens Behavioral Adjustment
• Does Gender Matter? Allison Ewing,
  M.S. Angela Taylor, Ph.D.

Gender x Teacher-Child Conflict Interaction for
Social Competency
Gender x Teacher-Child Closeness Interaction for
Social Competency

• Background/Research Questions

Measures

• Teacher-Child Relationship Quality
• The Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS
  Pianta Steinberg, 1992) teacher perceptions
  of teacher-child closeness, conflict, and
  dependency
• Child Social Adjustment
• Teachable Pupil Survey (Kornblau, 1982) teacher
  ratings of childrens social competence in school
• Preschool Behavior Questionnaire (Behar, 1977
  Behar Stringfield, 1974)- teacher ratings of
  hostile-aggressive and anxious-fearful behavior

• Children who have good relationships with their
  classroom
• teachers tend to make a better adjustment to
  school.
• But is this true for both boys and girls?
• This study was designed to examine gender
  differences in
• teacher-child relationship quality and
  behavioral adjustment in
• preschool children.
• This study addressed 2 main research questions
• Is the quality of the teacher-child relationship
  similar for boys and girls?
• Does teacher-child relationship quality predict
  behavioral adjustment in the same way for both
  girls and boys?

Results
Conclusions
Participants

• Question 1 Is teacher-child relationship
  quality similar for boys and girls?
• Results of t-test analyses showed that
• Girls were rated significantly higher in
  teacher-child closeness than
• boys.
• There were no significant gender differences in
  teacher-child
• conflict or dependency.
• Question 2 Does teacher-child relationship
  quality relate to child outcomes similarly for
  boys and girl?
• Results of hierarchical regression analyses
  showed that
• For boys more than girls
• Teacher-child conflict was associated with
  greater hostile-aggression and less social
  competence.
• For girls more than boys
• Teacher-child closeness was associated with
  higher social competence.
• For both boys and girls

• These findings suggest that the teacher- child
  relationship can serve as either a risk or a
  protective factor with respect to childrens
  early behavioral adjustment in school.
• Girls appear to benefit more than boys from a
  close relationship with their teacher.
• Boys may to be at greater risk than girls of
  experiencing behavioral problems when there is
  conflict in their relationship with the teacher.
• Because all teachers in our study were females,
  it is unclear to what extent these results may be
  influenced by the gender match between student
  and teacher.

Gender x Teacher-Child Conflict Interaction for
Hostile-Aggression

• 301 children enrolled in Head Start
• 158 boys, 143 girls
• 41.2 Hispanic, 29.6 White
• Mean age54.7 months
• 25 lead Head Start teachers
• All female
• 50 Hispanic, 42.3 White