Exploring Teacher and Child Factors That Explain Teacher-Perceived Relationship Qualities with Children Living in Poverty

Research has shown that the quality of preschool teacher-child relationships can forecast children's social-emotional development, academic achievement, and school attitude; these benefits are amplified for impoverished children. However, teachers tend to have conflictual relationships with children living in poverty. Additionally, research in this area mostly focuses on either teacher or child factors. Therefore, driven by the educational dilemma and research gap, I investigated contributions of both teacher and child factors to teacher-child relationships in preschools serving children living in poverty (i.e., attending Head Start). Stemming from a preliminary study, this study examined the relations of child gender, problem behavior, teacher-child racial/ethnic match, and teacher education and job stress to teacher-reported teacher-child relationships. Based on the estimations of a priori power analyses, 129 teachers and 635 children from collaborating Head Start agencies across the U.S. were recruited in this study. Teachers completed a set of well-validated self- and child-focused questionnaires through an online survey system. Considering the nested nature of data (children clustered within classes), a multilevel modeling approach was employed for data analysis. Several main findings emerged: First, boys tended to have more conflictual relationships and girls tended to have closer relationships with teachers, which could be partially explained by their different levels of problem behaviors. Second, teacher-child racial/ethnic match did not play a role in the quality of teacher-child relationships. Third, having a degree (AA, BA, and MA), as compared to having a certificate (i.e., CDA) was associated with a closer and less conflictual teacher-child relationship. Fourth, less job control perceived by teachers were associated with more teacher-child conflict. Implications were discussed in this study.