Influences of Teacher-Child Relationships

You will research and read one academic article for each annotated bibliography, preferably on a topic that will go beyond the content you have learned so far and that delves deeper into an area of interest that will benefit you.

• Research Criteria: An article from an academic journal found through EBSCOhost databases at EU.
• Writing Criteria: In 300 words (Time Roman, 12-font, double-spaced, 5-6 sentences), summarize your article and indicate how it will be a useful reference for Part IIB.

Teacher Influences 1

Chen, J., Jiang, H., Justice, L. M., Lin, T.-J., Purtell, K. M., Ansari, A. (2020). Influences of

teacher-child relationships and classroom social management on child-perceived peer social

experiences during early school years. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 2746.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.586991

Influences of Teacher-Child Relationships and Classroom Social Management on Child-

Perceived Peer Social Experiences during Early School Years

Jing Chen

Hui Jiang

Laura M. Justice

Tzu-Jung Lin

Kelly M. Purtell

Arya Ansari

The Ohio State University

Acknowledgement
The research reported here was supported by the Institute for Education Sciences, through Grant
R305N160024 awarded to The Ohio State University (Justice). The opinions expressed are those
of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or National Center for Education
Research. We would like to thank the research team, staff, and families without whom this
research would not have been possible.

Teacher Influences 2

Abstract

Interactions with teachers and peers are critical for children’s social, behavioral, and academic

development in the classroom context. However, these two types of interpersonal interactions in

the classroom are usually pursued via separate lines of inquiries. The current study bridges these

two areas of research to examine the way in which teachers influence child-perceived peer social

support and peer victimization for 2,678 children within 183 classrooms in preschool through

grade three. Two levels of teacher influence are considered, namely teacher-child closeness and

conflict relationships at the child-level, and teacher management of interpersonal interactions at

the classroom-level. Results of multilevel regression models showed that teacher-child closeness

was associated with the growth of child-perceived peer social support from fall to spring,

whereas teacher-child conflict and teachers’ behavior management practices were associated

with the change in child-perceived peer victimization across the academic year. These

associations were unique and above and beyond the influence of children’s actual peer social

interactions, including reciprocal friendships and the collective classroom reputation of peer

victimization. Collectively, findings highlight the multi-faceted teacher roles in shaping

children’s perceptions of their peer social experiences during the earliest years of schooling.

Keywords: Child-perception of peer social experiences; peer social support; peer victimization;

teacher-child relationships; classroom social management

Teacher Influences 3

Influences of Teacher-Child Relationships and Classroom Social Management on Child-

Perceived Peer Social Experiences during Early School Years

Children’s interactions with their teachers and peers are both salient features of the

classroom environment and figure prominently in theories concerning children’s development

and learning (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Studies find that positive interactions with

teachers and with peers and the way in which teachers manage interpersonal interactions in the

classroom influence children’s concurrent and long-term social, emotional, and academic

development (e.g., Hosan & Hoglund, 2017; Jerome et al., 2009; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996;

Ladd et al., 2017). However, much of the extant literature has considered the influence of

teachers and peers separately (Hughes & Im, 2016; Wang et al., 2016). Consequently, we know

little about the roles of teachers in optimizing children’s perceptions of their peer social

experiences and whether teacher influences are above and beyond children’s actual peer social

interactions. This an important gap in knowledge because researchers have argued that children’s

perceptions of their peer social experiences might be more predictive of their social and

psychological well-being and school success than their actual peer interactions (Betts et al.,

2013; Önder et al., 2019; Troop-Gordon et al., 2019). Thus, the current study examines multiple

levels of teacher influences, including teacher-child relationships (i.e., closeness and conflict) at

the child-level and teachers’ classroom management of interpersonal interactions at the

classroom-level, on two aspects of peer social experiences from children’s perspective: peer

social support and peer victimization.

Significance of Child-Perceived Peer Social Experiences

Peer social support and peer victimization are two important aspects of children’s

classroom experiences. Peer social support refers to supportive behaviors from peers that can

Teacher Influences 4

enhance children’s functioning and resilience to difficulties (Bakalım & Taşdelen-Karçkay,

2016). Bakalım and Taşdelen-Karçkay argued that peer social support provides children with

emotional comfort that protects children against anxiety and stress, helps them cope with

difficulties via guidance and feedback. Indeed, peer social support is associated with a range of

positive outcomes, including children’s motivation, attention, academic attitudes, and

achievement (Bursal, 2017; Coolahan et al., 2000). Thus, peer social support is considered as a

primary indicator of school adaptiveness and academic success from preschool through

elementary school and above (Blandon et al., 2010; Coolahan et al. , 2000).

Peer victimization, on the other hand, has been linked with school maladjustment, which

refers to physical and emotional harms children receive from peers, such as being hit and teased.

Studies find that peer victimization is a precursor of loneliness and school avoidance (Buhs &

Ladd, 2001; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996) and is associated with low self-esteem, depression,

external behavioral problems, and academic failure (Alsaker, 1993; Blandon et al., 2010; Ladd et

al., 2017; Olweus, 1992). Researchers report that children who experience peer victimization

tend to be less engaged classroom activities, which, in turn, is associated with their emotional

adjustment difficulties and limits their access to opportunities and resources that are essential for

social and academic development (Blandon et al., 2010; Buhs & Ladd, 2001).

Although children’s perceptions of their peer social experiences are related to their actual

peer social interactions (Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996), only a few studies have conceptually

differentiated children’s perceived peer experiences from their actual peer experiences. This

differentiation is important because some researchers suggest that perceptions of being supported

by peers reflect children’s competency in peer interactions, which is associated with their

learning behaviors and school success (Blandon et al., 2010; Coolahan et al., 2000). Specifically,

Teacher Influences 5

in the literature of peer isolation, the distinction between objective isolation and perceived

isolation has been established, with the former representing the actual quantity of peer

interactions and the latter capturing loneliness or the feeling of being isolated by peers (Danese

et al., 2009; Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009).

Differentiating perceived from actual peer social experience is also meaningful because

children’s perceptions might be more strongly associated with their social and emotional well-

being. On the one hand, children’s perceptions of their peer social experiences can shape their

self-perceptions or self-worth, which can then influence children’s social behaviors (Ogelman et

al., 2019) and their levels of being liked by peers (Önder et al., 2019). Önder et al. explained that

self-perception reflects one’s own competence and personality, which is established when

children perceive their strengths and weaknesses when interacting with others and that children

with low self-perception are likely to be passive and timid in peer interactions, which would

contribute to their being less liked by peers. On the other hand, Troop-Gordon et al. (2019)

discussed that support and victimization experiences in peer groups build children’s beliefs about

peers, which, according to social information processing theories, would shape their behavioral

and emotional responses to future interpersonal events. Some suggest that perceived isolation

tends to result in more severe and enduring consequences than objective isolation, because the

perceptions of being isolated can alter individuals’ social reasoning and information processing

(Danese et al., 2009; Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). Specifically, Cacioppo and Hawkley

explained that the perception of being isolated by peers may trigger children’s confirmatory and

memorial bias and can lead to their negative interpretations of peers’ social moves, which in turn

may contribute to children’s misbehaviors and emotional maladaptiveness. Hence, although

perceived and actual peer social experiences are rarely distinguished in the broader sense of peer

Teacher Influences 6

social experience, it stands to reason that perceived peer social support and perceived peer

victimization would shape children’s understandings about themselves and about others.

Therefore, there is a need to examine factors that may influence children’s perceptions of their

peer social experiences.

Teacher Influences on Peer Social Experiences

Besides peers, teachers represent another key dimension of classroom ecology (Hamre &

Pianta, 2001; Jerome et al., 2009). As noted earlier, however, interactions with teachers and

interactions with peers tend to be discussed separately (Hughes & Im, 2016; Wang et al., 2016),

except for only a few studies as elaborated below; such work has suggested that teachers’

relationships with individual children and their classroom social management can shape

children’s peer social

experiences in the classroom.

For individual children, their interactions with teachers matter to their social experiences

with peers. This is because teacher-child interactions can be observed by all classmates, which

helps classmates draw inferences about children’s attributes and likeability and form a classroom

consensus about children’s reputations (Hughes & Im, 2016). Further, teacher-child closeness is

grounded in positive interactions, such as warm and open communications, between a teacher

and a child (Birch & Ladd, 1997), which forms a secure base for children to feel being cared and

connected to the classroom environment. Teacher-child closeness is associated with children’s

engagement in classroom activities and their social competences and peer acceptance (e.g., Birch

& Ladd, 1997; Gest & Rodkin, 2011; Hall-Lande et al., 2007; Pianta & Stuhlman, 2004).

Children with close relationships with teachers may also receive greater support from teachers,

which contributes to their social and academic development (Hamre & Pianta, 2001). On the

contrary, teacher-child conflicts contribute to peer disliking as well as school avoidance,

Teacher Influences 7

externalizing behaviors, and decreased prosocial behaviors and cooperation (Hamre & Pianta,

2001; Hughes & Im, 2016).

At the classroom-level, teachers’ classroom management of interpersonal interactions

(i.e., classroom social management) serves to shape children’s peer social experience. Classroom

social management is a challenge and critical task for teachers, which requires them to be aware

of children’s social needs and to afford developmental opportunities for children to positively

interact with peers from diverse backgrounds (Farmer, Hamm, Dawes, Barko-Alva, & Cross,

2019). A commonly used tool to capture classroom social management is the Classroom

Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Downer et al., 2012; Hamre & Pianta, 2007; Pianta et al.,

2008), which features three domains of classroom management based on social and instructional

interpersonal interactions (i.e., emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional

support). These three domains are further categorized into nine dimensions. The current study

includes four dimensions that mainly focus on the social aspect of interactional interactions,

naming positive climate, which refers to interactions between teachers and children and among

children that feature enthusiasm, enjoyment, and respect; negative climate, which refers to

classroom interpersonal interactions that involve anger, aggression, or harshness; teacher

sensitivity, which represent the extent to which teachers provide comfort, reassurance, and

encouragement based on individual children’s needs; and behavior management, which refers to

teachers’ effectiveness in preventing and redirecting children’s misbehaviors. Warm and

sensitive interactions with teachers and well-managed classrooms promote classroom

inclusiveness and facilitate social connections among children, through which children develop

social and emotional competences, reduce problematic behaviors, and become less vulnerable to

peer victimizations (Cappella & Neal, 2012; Downer et al., 2012; Hamre & Pianta, 2001).

Teacher Influences 8

Although teachers can influence children’s peer social experiences via multiple avenues

as reviewed above, few studies have taken into account different levels of teacher influences

simultaneously. Farmer et al. (2019) discussed that teachers are not only members in the

classroom society interacting directly with individual children, but, at the same time, they also

are leaders who act as an authority and a facilitator to manage classroom dynamics and to ensure

children following the rules. Hence, the current study aims to capture teachers’ multi-faceted

roles to have a more comprehensive understanding of teacher influence on children’s peer social

experiences in the classroom.

The Current Study

The current study focuses on children from preschool through grade three; during these

grades, positive peer experiences provide essential support to children’s development and

learning, whereas peer victimization occurs relatively more often than that in the later grades

(Ladd et al., 2017; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996). Thus, there is a need to investigate teacher roles

in managing classroom social dynamics during children’s primary years of schooling.

Although there has been some research examining certain teacher influence on children’s

peer social experiences, it is not clear whether teacher influences operate above and beyond the

influence of children’s actual peer social interactions. For the purpose of this study, children’s

actual peer interactions were operationalized as the number of reciprocal friendships and their

classroom reputation of peer victimization. Friendship is considered as the most important source

of peer support, which provides children with a context for skill acquisition and development and

helps children to validate their shared beliefs and identifies (Gifford-Smith & Brownell, 2003;

Ladd et al., 1996). Further, compared to unilateral friendships (i.e., one child identifies the other

as a friend but not vice versa), reciprocal friendships (i.e., children mutually identify each other

Teacher Influences 9

as friends) tend to have higher quality, are more stable, and, therefore provide greater peer

support (e.g., Quinn & Hennessy, 2010). Classroom reputation of peer victimization reflects the

consensus among all classmates about the extent of harassment one experiences from peers.

Hughes and Im (2016) discussed that children’s disliking of a child tends to go beyond dyadic

antipathy and would be contributed greater by group-based reputation based on shared

observations. Both reciprocal friendship and classroom reputation of peer victimization

triangulate the perceptions from both children and peers, which, therefore, would be less biased

by individuals’ opinions.

In all, the current study aims to examine multiple levels of teacher influence on child-

perceived peer social support and peer victimization in the spring of the academic year when

controlling for those in the fall. Teacher influences include teachers’ closeness and conflict with

individual children and their classroom social management at the classroom-level as represented

by observations of positive climate, negative climate, teacher sensitivity, and behavior

management. A sub-aim is to determine whether the above teacher influences on children-

perceived social experiences are unique and operate beyond the influence of their actual peer

interactions manifested as the number of reciprocal friendships and classroom reputation of peer

victimization.

Methods

Participants

This study is part of a large federally funded project focused on advancing understanding

of early childhood learning experiences from preschool (pre-kindergarten) to third grade. The

study sample consisted of two cohorts of participants, recruited from two large school districts in

Teacher Influences 10

a Midwestern state. Recruitment procedures were carried out in accordance with protocols to

protect human subjects as approved by the institutional review board (IRB) of the university.

Before the school year started, informational sessions were held in schools located within

district borders to recruit teachers. All children in classrooms taught by participating teachers

were eligible to enroll, and consent packets were sent home via backpack mail. Most participants

were recruited in the fall, although additional preschool classrooms were added in winter and

spring to meet recruitment goals. Consented teachers were asked to complete questionnaires

about their classrooms, their children, their teaching practices, and their own background

information. Consented children were administered direct assessments in fall and spring of the

school year.

The sample included 43 schools, 183 classrooms, and 2,678 consented children. As

summarized in Table 1, 50% of the participating children were girls, 66% were White, and 13%

were Hispanic/Latino(a). Twelve percent of the children came from households that primarily

spoke a language other than English and 10% of children had identified disabilities. Annual

family income was distributed bimodally with 27% of the participating families falling in the

lowest income bracket ($30,000 or lower) and 31% in the highest income bracket ($120,001 or

higher). Forty-five percent of the children’s mothers completed four-year college education or

higher. At the classroom level, an average classroom had 22 children (range = 12 ~ 29). Teachers

were mostly female (97%), White (96%), and non-Hispanic (99%). On average, they were 38

years old with 13 years of teaching experience. Ninety-four percent of the teachers had a

bachelor’s degree or higher, and 82% had a teaching certificate.

Measures

Teacher Influences 11

To address the aims of the current study, we included measures of child-perceived peer

social experiences, teacher-child relationships, classroom social management, and actual peer

social interactions. Children’s family background and demographic information were collected

from caregiver and teacher questionnaires at the beginning of the school year.

Child-perceived peer social experiences. In fall and spring of the school year, one-on-

one child interviews were conducted by trained research staff in quiet areas of the school

hallway, and responses were recorded using a tablet in accordance with the approved study

protocols. Based on previous studies of peer relationship and children’s school adjustment

(Asher et al., 1984; Kochenderfer & Ladd, 1996; Ladd, 1990; Waters et al., 2012), the research

team developed measures of perceived peer social support comprising a total of 11 items (e.g.,

“How often would kids in your class help you if you are hurt?” and “How often would kids in

your class tell you you’re good at things?”) and perceived peer victimization consisting of four

items (e.g., “Does anyone in your class ever hit you?” and “Does anyone in your class ever say

mean things to you?”). All items used a three-point frequency scale (0 = Never, 1 = Sometimes, 2

= A lot), and the internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) ranged from .75 to .78 across scales and

time points. The responses from items on the same scale were averaged to create composite

scores for each child. In the analysis, spring scores were used as outcomes, and fall scores were

included as covariates.

Teacher-child relationships. In the fall, teachers reported on their closeness and conflict

with each child using the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (Pianta, 1991). The closeness

subscale included seven items (e.g., “I share an affectionate, warm relationship with this child”

and “If upset, this child will seek comfort from me”) and the conflict subscale contained eight

items (e.g., “This child and I always seem to be struggling with each other” and “Dealing with

Teacher Influences 12

this child drains my energy”). All items used a five-point Likert-type scale (0 = Definitely does

not apply, 4 = Definitely applies) and the scales demonstrated strong internal consistency (alphas

ranged from .88 to .94). For analysis, the mean score of each subscale of the teacher-child

relationship was calculated for each child.

Classroom social management. Teacher’s classroom social management was captured

in the winter with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS, Pianta et al., 2008). As

noted earlier, although the original CLASS includes nine dimensions, the current study focuses

on four dimensions mainly from the social domain, including 1) positive climate, which reflects

the warmth, respect, and enjoyment communicated by verbal and non-verbal interactions, 2)

negative climate, which assesses the overall level of expressed negativity among teachers and

children in the classroom, 3) teacher sensitivity, which refers to the teacher’s awareness and

responsiveness to the various needs of individual children and the entire class, and 4) behavior

management, which encompasses the teacher’s use of clear behavioral expectations and effective

methods to prevent and redirect misbehavior. In each classroom, trained and reliable research

staff conducted two 30-minute observation cycles, where observers live-coded the teacher’s

practice or behavior as it contributed to the overall classroom environment on scales of 1 to 7 (1

= minimally characteristic, 7 = highly characteristic). Composite scores for each dimension

were created by averaging across the two cycles. To ensure reliability, research staff completed

extensive training sessions before entering the field, and ongoing quality checks were conducted

via biweekly drift meetings. In addition, 20% of all in-field observations were double-coded, and

inter-rater agreement (i.e., two coders scored within one point of difference on the same

dimension) ranged from .90 to .92.

Teacher Influences 13

Peer social interactions. Peer social interactions including reciprocal friendships and

classroom reputation of peer victimization were collected in the spring based on a peer

nomination approach (Parkhurst & Asher, 1992), which has been found valid for children as

young as preschoolers (Chen et al., 2020; Daniel et al., 2016). We asked children to identify

classmates “who are your best friends” and “who gets picked on or teased?” Preschoolers were

presented with a photo roster of all children in their classrooms to facilitate the nomination,

while older children were provided a list of names of their classmates. For each child, we

counted the number of reciprocal friendships when the child and classmates mutually nominated

each other as best friends; classroom reputation of peer victimization was represented by the

frequency at which the child was nominated by classmates as someone who gets picked on or

teased. Children’s raw scores were standardized by dividing classroom size minus one, the

maximum possible value, to allow the indices to be compared across classrooms.

Analytical approach

We employed multilevel regression models to investigate the effects of teacher influence

on children’s perception of peer social experiences, given that children (level-1) were nested

within classrooms (level-2). Two outcomes were examined, namely the child-perceived peer

social support and child-perceived peer victimization in the spring. For each outcome, we first

ran unconditional multilevel models where child outcomes were clustered by classrooms, to

determine the percentage of observed variance attributable to classroom differences. Second, we

fitted conditional multilevel models (Model 1), examining the association between teacher-child

relationships and teacher classroom management and child-perceived peer social experiences,

controlling for the pretest scores (i.e., child-perceived peer social experiences in the fall). Other

controlled variables included child gender, disability status reported by teachers in spring, child

Teacher Influences 14

race reported by caregivers (dichotomized into White vs. non-White), grade level, and school

district. Finally, we included actual peer social interactions (i.e., reciprocal friendship and

classroom reputation of peer victimization) as covariates to test whether teacher influences

contribute to children’s perceptions above and beyond their actual peer social interactions

(Model 2). All models were fit in R with the lmer package (Bates, Mächler, Bolker, & Walker,

2015) with maximum likelihood estimation. Missing data were list-wise deleted. The proportion

of missing for each variable is reported in Table 1.

Results

As shown in Table 2, children generally perceived that they had some peer social support,

both in fall and in spring (mean = 1.32 and 1.35) with 75-79% reporting scores between 1

(Sometimes) and 2 (A lot). The mean of child-perceived victimization was 0.44 and 0.53 in the

fall and spring, respectively, with 32-34% of children reporting never experiencing peer

victimization. A little over one-half of children (55% in fall and 51% in spring), however,

perceived experiencing some victimization, with scores greater than 0 (Never) but less than 1

(Sometimes). In terms of teacher-child relationships, teachers reported moderate to high levels of

closeness (M = 3.13 out of 4) and low levels of conflict (M = 0.63 out of 4). Additionally, the

classrooms were rated as having moderate quality in terms of teacher sensitivity (M = 4.65 out of

7), behavior management (M = 5.42 out of 7), and positive climate (M = 5.52 out of 7), and were

scored very high in the area of negative climate (suggesting the absence of negativity; M = 6.92

out of 7). Finally, in terms of actual peer social interactions, children had reciprocal friendships

with 8% of their classmates (range = 0%~38%) and were nominated as “being picked on or

teased” by 4% of their classmates (range = 0%~80%).

Teacher Influences 15

Pairwise correlations are presented in Table 3. There was a moderate correlation between

child-perceived peer experiences in the fall and the spring (.41~.55). Child-perceived peer

victimization was negatively correlated with teachers’ behavior management scores (-.25~-.20),

and child-perceived peer victimization in the spring was also negatively correlated with teachers’

ability to promote a positive climate (-.16). In addition, teacher-child closeness and conflict were

negatively correlated (-.27), and the four CLASS indices were positively correlated (.17~.70).

Teacher influences on child-perceived peer social experiences

The primary aim of the current study was to examine the associations between teacher-

child relationships and teachers’ classroom social management and two aspects of child-

perceived peer social experiences in the spring: peer social support and peer victimization. The

unconditional model (Model 0, output not presented) showed that for perceived peer social

support, 3% of the variance (< .01) was attributable to differences between classrooms, and 97%

(.15) was due to individual differences. For perceived peer victimization, 14% of the variance

(.04) was accountable by classroom-level differences, while 86% of the variation (.25) was

between children.

Next, our focal teacher predictors of interest were included in Model 1 (Table 4). Results

showed that, after controlling for fall responses on child-perceived peer social experiences and

other covariates, teacher-child closeness significantly predicted child-perceived peer social

support (b = 0.04, p < .01) and teacher-child conflict predicted child-perceived peer victimization

(b = 0.10, p < .001). Specifically, with one additional unit increase in teacher-child closeness (on

a scale of 0 to 4), child-perceived peer social support was expected to increase by 0.04 units (on

a scale of 0 to 2). With one unit increase in teacher-child conflict, child-perceived peer

victimization was expected to increase by 0.10 units. At the classroom level, teachers’ behavior

Teacher Influences 16

management was negatively associated with child-perceived peer victimization (b = -0.07, p

< .05). A unit increase in behavior management (on a scale of 1 to 7) was associated with 0.07

unit of decrease in child-perceived peer victimization. Collectively, Model 1 accounted for

approximately 20% of the variance for both of the outcome variables at the child level, and over

70% of the variance at the classroom level for child-perceived peer victimization. Almost no

extra classroom-level variance for child-perceived peer social support was accounted for by the

above variables, which might be because there was originally little classroom-level variance

(4%) in total as suggested by the unconditional model.

Finally, to determine whether the associations reported above were unique, we included

children’s actual peer social interactions in Model 2 (Table 5), which were operationalized as

reciprocal friendships and classroom reputation of peer victimization. Results showed that even

though reciprocal friendship was a strong predictor of child-perceived peer social support (b =

0.74, p < .001) and classroom reputation of peer victimization was predictive of self-perceived

peer victimization (b = 0.94, p < .001), the above-reported association associations were stable

and remained significant.

Discussions

The current study examined the interplay among teachers, children, and peers as actors in

the classroom social ecology during early school years. Specifically, we focused on the

influences of teacher-child closeness and conflict and teacher’s classroom social management on

child-perceived peer social support and peer victimization. The current study expands on the

existing literature by, first, simultaneously taking into account teachers’ roles as classroom

members who form closeness and conflict with individual children and as leaders who shape

classroom social dynamics, and, second, by further highlighting the critical roles of teachers in

Teacher Influences 17

shaping children’s perceptions of their peer social experiences, after controlling for children’s

actual peer social interactions. The major findings are discussed below.

First, it is evidenced that teacher influence at the individual-level and that at the

classroom-level are unique, and that each contributes to child-perceived peer social experiences.

In terms of the relationships between teacher and individual children, our findings showed that

teacher-reported closeness and conflict with children in the fall contributed to peer social support

and peer victimization perceived by children in the spring respectively, controlling for the fall

scores. This finding indicates that children with close relationships with teachers tend to feel

more socially supported by peers and that children who have conflicts with teachers tend to

experience increased perceived peer victimization over the academic year. These findings are in

line with the literature that teacher-child interactions broadcast children’s attributes and likability

to classmates who observe the interactions (Hughes & Im, 2016), which foster a classroom

consensus regarding children’s reputations and therefore influence classmates’ interactions with

the children. It is also likely that positive teacher-child relationships can promote children’s

cooperative engagement in classroom activities and improves their social competence, while

with negative teacher-child relationships, children may avoid school and demonstrate more

externalizing behavior problems and less prosocial behaviors during interpersonal interactions

(Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Hughes & Im, 2016).

Second, regarding teachers’ classroom social management, our findings showed that

better behavior management in the fall was associated with less peer victimization as perceived

by children in the spring controlling for the fall scores. This finding suggests that in classrooms

where misbehaviors are better managed and redirected, child-perceived peer victimization

decreases over time. This finding is aligned with literature showing that well-managed

Teacher Influences 18

classrooms are associated with greater social and academic development and with reduction of

behavior problems (Emmer & Stough, 2001; Downer et al., 2012). Kochenderfer-Ladd and

Pelletier (2008) further discussed that, when teachers do not consider bullying as a normative

behavior in the classroom, they would be more likely to intervene towards negative peer social

interactions rather than expecting the victims to handle the incidences on their own, which has

been found associated with lower levels of peer victimization in the classroom.

However, it is surprising that the other classroom social management indicators (i.e.,

teacher sensitivity, positive climate, and negative climate) were not found to be positively

associated with child-perceived peer social experiences in the current study. It might be that the

influence of teacher sensitivity and classroom climate on children’s classroom social experiences

might be more indirect than behavioral management and could take a longer time to alter

children’s peer social experiences. Another possibility from the measurement perspective is that,

as reported in the result section, there was minimal variance at the classroom-level in the

unconditional model when predicting children-perceived peer social support, which left little

room for the classroom-level teacher influences to show predictive effect. Future research may

apply a more refined tool to assess these aspects of the classroom ecology.

A third major finding is that teacher influences on children’s perceptions of their social

experiences operate in a manner that is unique and beyond children’s actual peer social

interactions. Specifically, for children who are similar in the number of reciprocal friendships

and in the collective classroom reputation of peer victimization, those who have close

relationships with their teachers perceived having greater peer social support, whereas those who

had conflicted relationships with their teachers perceived greater peer victimization. Also, those

in classrooms with better behavior management perceived less peer victimization.

Teacher Influences 19

Children’s perceptions of their peer social experiences emerge based on their social

interactions, which then may reflect their self-evaluation of social competence as well as beliefs

about peers (Blandon et al., 2010; Coolahan et al., 2000). Our results indicate that as a member

and an authoritative figure in the classroom, teachers play a critical role in shaping children’s

beliefs about their own strengths and weakness in social interactions and about the classroom

social environment, which operates uniquely beyond the influence of children’s actual peer

social interactions. It is possible that, independent from actual interactions with peers, positive

relationships with teachers and well-managed classrooms can enhance children’s sense of

connectiveness with classmates, which improves their social competence in engaging in peer

social interactions (Hughes & Im, 2016), and can promote the classroom inclusiveness; in turn,

this may reduce problematic social behaviors and help children become less vulnerable to peer

victimizations (Cappella & Neal, 2012). However, the current study does not draw causal

inferences. Future study is needed to examine the mechanism and dynamic relations among

teachers, peer social interactions, and children’s perceptions of their peer social experiences.

Despite these contributions to the literature, there are a few limitations in the current

study. First, teacher-child relationships were assessed at a single time point. However, these

relationships may vary across the academic year, as suggested by Hughes and Im (2016) who

showed that the average one-year stability of teacher-child closeness and conflict were .38

and .57 in elementary classrooms. Similarly, although children’s perceptions of peer social

experiences were assessed in the fall and spring and classroom social management was observed

multiple times in the winter, it is necessary for future studies to account for the change

throughout an academic year in terms of children’s perceived classroom social experiences and

teachers’ classroom social management. Second, at the classroom-level, teachers can shape

Teacher Influences 20

classroom interpersonal interactions through many other ways besides classroom social

management, such as seating arrangements, grouping strategies, types of activities, and

responsibilities afforded to children (Farmer et al., 2019). While the current study has taken into

account multiple levels of teacher influences, future research may take a more systematic and

comprehensive view when examining teacher influences on classroom social dynamics. Third,

when representing children’s actual peer social interactions, although the current study tried to

select the most representative indicators (e.g., reciprocal friendships and classroom reputation of

peer victimization), other aspects of peer social interactions can contribute to perceived peer

social support, such as peer acceptance, peer rejection, and peer isolation. Future research may

consider applying a latent-variable approach to account for different aspects of peer social

interactions when representing children’s actual social experiences. Fourth, children’s

perceptions provide a unique perspective of their peer social experiences. However, their

perceptions can be biased, and so can teacher reports of their relationships with children. Future

studies may consider using more objective measures to capture peer social experience and

teacher-child relationships. Finally, caution is warranted when generalizing findings from the

current study. Although the study sample represented a wide range of families from diverse

backgrounds, families were drawn from two school districts in a single Midwestern state in the

U.S. Additionally, teachers who were willing to participate in this study and to be observed by

researchers might have demonstrated relatively higher classroom social management skills

considering the majority of them had a bachelor’s degree or higher. Accordingly, replication

with different samples, measures, and methods is an important future direction.

In all, the current study demonstrated that teachers can influence children’s perceptions

of their peer social experiences simultaneously through their closeness and conflict with

Teacher Influences 21

individual children and through their classroom social management. Additionally, such teacher

influences on children’s perceptions are unique from children’s actual peer social interactions.

Findings underscore the need for teachers to develop close relationships with individual children

and to eliminate conflict with them. As Hughes and Im (2016) suggested, although it is

understandable that teachers might report conflict with children who have problem behaviors,

teachers are encouraged to provide support to these children so as to optimize their classroom

experiences. Beyond interactions with individual children, as the leaders in the classrooms,

managing and redirecting misbehaviors can improve the quality of interpersonal interactions and

reduce negative peer social experiences perceived by children. In sum, the current study

highlights the multi-faceted roles of teachers in shaping children’s classroom experiences and the

classroom social ecology during the earliest years of schooling.

Teacher Influences 22

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Teacher Influences 28

Table 1
Sample description

Variable
Valid

N
%

missing
Mean, % SD Range

Child and family characteristics
School district 2678 0.0

District 1 62.1%
District 2 37.9%

Grade level 2678 0.0
Preschool 21.7%
Kindergarten 24.7%
First grade 17.8%
Second grade 18.9%
Third grade 16.9%

Child gender 2659 0.7
Female 49.5%
Male 50.5%

Child race 2628 1.9
White/Caucasian (non-multiracial) 66.1%
Black/African American (non-

multiracial)
8.0%

Asian (non-multiracial) 6.3%
Other (non-multiracial) 7.9%
Multiracial 11.8%

Child is Hispanic 2637 1.5 12.8%
Child has an IEP in spring 2450 8.5 10.1%
Primary language spoken at home is

English
2649 1.1 87.9%

Annual household income 2564 4.3
< $30,001 27.2% $30,001 ~ $60,000 16.8% $60,001 ~ $90,000 12.9% $90,001 ~ $120,000 12.0% > $120,000 31.1%

Mother’s highest level of education 2619 2.2
Less than high school diploma 10.3%
High school diploma or GED 31.8%
Associate degree 12.8%
Bachelor’s degree 24.8%
Graduate or professional degree 20.3%

Child age in fall (in months) 2650 1.0 78.16 18.37 25~124
Number of people in household 2026 24.3 4.51 1.23 2~9+
Number of children (age < 18) in

household
2026 24.3 2.47 1.12 1~9+

Note. Means are reported for continuous variables and percentages reported for categorical
variables.

Teacher Influences 29

Table 1 (Cont’d)
Sample description

Variable
Valid

N
%

missing
Mean, % SD Range

Classroom and teacher characteristics
School district 183 0.0

District 1 64.5%
District 2 35.5%

Grade level 183 0.0
Preschool 25.7%
Kindergarten 25.7%
First grade 15.8%
Second grade 16.9%
Third grade 15.8%

Teacher gender 178 2.7
Female 97.2%
Male 2.8%

Teacher race 175 4.4
White/Caucasian (non-multiracial) 96.0%
Black/African American (non-

multiracial)
2.3%

Other (non-multiracial) and
Multiracial

1.7%

Teacher ethnicity (1 =
Hispanic/Latino(a))

174 4.9 1.1%

Certification status (1 = Yes) 169 7.7 82.8%
Teacher’s highest level of education 174 4.9

High school diploma or GED 1.1%
Some college credit, no degree 2.3%
Associate degree 2.3%
Bachelor’s degree 35.1%
Master’s degree 59.2%

Teacher age (in years) 179 2.2 37.66 9.05 22~60
Teaching experience (in years) 173 5.5 13.39 8.15 2~36
Number of children in classroom 178 2.7 21.90 3.99 12~29

Note. Means are reported for continuous variables and percentages reported for categorical
variables.

Teacher Influences 30

Table 2

Descriptives of key study variables

Variable N % missing Mean SD Range

Child-perceived peer social experiences

Child-perceived peer support fall 2214 17.3 1.32 0.42 0.00~2.00

Child-perceived peer support spring 2443 8.8 1.35 0.39 0.00~2.00

Child-perceived peer victimization fall 2234 16.6 0.44 0.51 0.00~2.00

Child-perceived peer victimization spring 2457 8.3 0.53 0.54 0.00~2.00

Actual peer social interactions (standardized)

Reciprocal friends 2461 8.1 .08 .07 .00~.38

Reputation of peer victimization 2662 0.6 .04 .06 .00~.80

Teacher-child relationships

Teacher-child closeness 2293 14.4 3.13 0.69 0.00~4.00

Teacher-child conflict 2293 14.4 0.63 0.80 0.00~4.00

Classroom social management

CLASS behavior management 179 2.2 5.42 0.78 3.00~7.00

CLASS teacher sensitivity 179 2.2 4.65 1.02 2.00~7.00

CLASS positive climate 179 2.2 5.52 0.84 2.50~7.00

CLASS negative climate 179 2.2 6.92 0.24 5.50~7.00

Teacher Influence

Table 3

Pearson correlation coefficients among key study variables

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Child-perceived peer social experiences

1. Peer support fall —

2. Peer support spring .55* —

3. Peer victimization fall .18 .06 —

4. Peer victimization spring -.13 .20* .41* —

Actual peer social interactions

5. Reciprocal friends .07 .10 -.11 -.12 —

6. Reputation of peer victimization -.07 .03 -.02 .11 -.13 —

Teacher-child relationship

7. Teacher-child closeness .16 .13 .04 -.09 .05 -.13 —

8. Teacher-child conflict -.18 -.12 .14 .16 -.01 .15 -.27* —

Classroom social management

9. CLASS behavior management -.07 -.14 -.25* -.20* .07 -.12 -.07 .12 —

10. CLASS teacher sensitivity -.07 .01 -.13 -.06 -.05 -.04 -.06 .07 .38* —

11. CLASS positive climate -.07 -.06 -.12 -.16* .08 -.08 -.10 -.07 .70* .51* —

12. CLASS negative climate .03 .07 -.15 -.11 .06 -.08 -.02 .05 .42* .17* .40* —

* p < .05.

Teacher Influence

Table 4

Predicting child-perceived peer social support and peer victimization in spring: Model 1

Peer social support Peer victimization
Coefficient SE Coefficient SE

Pretest
Child-perceived peer social support fall 0.34*** 0.02
Child-perceived peer victimization fall 0.37*** 0.02

Demographics
Preschool vs. K -0.00 0.03 -0.04 0.05
Grade 1/2/3 vs. K 0.03 0.03 -0.03 0.04
District 1 vs. 2 -0.01 0.02 0.07* 0.03
Child is a girl 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.02
Child has a disability (spring) -0.07* 0.03 0.02 0.03
Child is White 0.03 0.02 0.00 0.03

Teacher-child relationship and teacher practice
Teacher-child closeness (cmc) 0.04** 0.01 0.04 0.02
Teacher-child conflict (cmc) -0.02 0.01 0.10*** 0.02
CLASS behavior management 0.00 0.02 -0.07* 0.03
CLASS teacher sensitivity -0.00 0.01 0.01 0.02
CLASS positive climate 0.02 0.02 -0.00 0.03
CLASS negative climate 0.02 0.05 -0.07 0.07

Model information
AIC 1493.19 2564.03
BIC 1582.41 2653.41
Log Likelihood -730.60 -1266.02
Number of children 1951 1971
Number of classrooms 163 163
Level-2 variance (Intercept) 0.00 0.01
Level-1 variance (Residual) 0.12 0.20

Note: cmc: class-mean centered.
*** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05

Teacher Influence

Table 5

Predicting child-perceived peer social support and peer victimization in spring: Model 2

Peer social support Peer victimization
Coefficient SE Coefficient SE

Pretest
Child-perceived peer social support fall 0.33*** 0.02
Child-perceived peer victimization fall 0.37*** 0.02

Demographics
Preshool vs. K -0.01 0.03 -0.06 0.05
Grade 1/2/3 vs. K 0.01 0.02 -0.03 0.04
District 1 vs. 2 0.00 0.02 0.06* 0.03
Child is a girl 0.02 0.02 0.04 0.02
Child has a disability (spring) -0.06* 0.03 0.01 0.03
Child is white 0.02 0.02 0.00 0.03

Teacher-child relationship and teacher practice
Teacher-child closeness (cmc) 0.04** 0.01 0.04 0.02
Teacher-child conflict (cmc) -0.01 0.01 0.09*** 0.02
CLASS behavior management -0.00 0.02 -0.07* 0.03
CLASS teacher sensitivity 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.02
CLASS positive climate 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.03
CLASS negative climate 0.01 0.05 -0.07 0.07

Peer social interactions
Reciprocal friends 0.74*** 0.11 -0.09 0.15
Reputation of peer victimization -0.17 0.12 0.94*** 0.16

Model information
AIC 1436.71 2508.44
BIC 1536.86 2608.76
Log Likelihood -700.36 -1236.22
Number of children 1927 1946
Number of classrooms 163 163
Level-2 variance (Intercept) 0.00 0.01
Level-1 variance (Residual) 0.11 0.19

Note: cmc: class-mean centered.
*** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05