Student–teacher closeness and conflict in students with and without special educational needs

Abstract

Teachers play a key role in creating effective conditions for students to succeed in school. The quality of student-teacher relationships is consistently associated with social, emotional, behavioural and academic adjustment, and this is even more relevant for students with special educational needs (SEN), considering these students' emotional, social and learning vulnerabilities. This study aimed to examine the associations between students' externalising and internalising behaviour, social skills and academic performance, and teachers' perceptions of conflict and closeness in their relationships with students with and without SEN. Data regarding 360 students in Year 3, Year 5 and Year 7 (169 students with SEN) were collected. Teachers (n = 74) reported on the student-teacher relationship and students' social skills, behaviour problems and academic performance. Special education teachers (n = 38) provided information regarding the diagnosis and profile of functioning of students with SEN. Results showed that teachers' reports of students' social skills and externalising problems were the strongest predictors of closeness and conflict. Internalising problems and SEN status also predicted decreased closeness, despite smaller effects. Taken together, findings support the importance of professional development opportunities focusing on facilitating teachers' relationships with students with perceived challenging behaviour.

Bullying in Students with Special Education Needs and Learning Difficulties: The Role of the Student–Teacher Relationship Quality and Students’ Social Status in the Peer Group

“…Research has shown that children with SEN and LD have difficulties in social skills (Freire et al, 2019;Wiener & Schneider, 2002). Compared to their classmates, children with SEN tend to have lower levels of prosocial behaviors (Dasioti & Kolaitis, 2018), are less accepted (Broomhead, 2019) and have fewer or no friends (Banks et al, 2018;Pinto et al, 2019).…”

“…In addition, children with SEN present problems in terms of closeness and conflict with teachers (Freire et al, 2019) and children with LD have higher levels of dependency (Pasta et al, 2013) and greater dissatisfaction in their relationships with teachers (Murray & Greenberg, 2001) than their classmates. Children with LD tend to perceive significantly high levels of school danger (Murray & Greenberg, 2001) and in both in children with SEN and LD, the presence of internalizing and externalizing problems, such as emotional symptoms and hyperactivity, seems to be correlated with bullying victimization (Boyes et al, 2020;Dasioti & Kolaitis, 2018).…”

“…This relationship, especially in the first years of school, has been pointed to as key to the future adaptation and development of students (Pianta et al, 1995;Wanders et al, 2020). However, because of their impairment, students with SEN and LD may have difficulties with social participation (Banks et al, 2018;Freire et al, 2019;Wiener & Schneider, 2002) and their relationships with teachers (Freire et al, 2019;Murray & Greenberg, 2001), being at higher risk of victimization and exclusion (Boyes et al, 2020;Dasioti & Kolaitis, 2018).…”

“…Challenging aspects of school participation and inclusion of children with SEN and LD (Broomhead, 2019;Freire et al, 2019;Pinto et al, 2019) might expose these students as at risk of bullying. To the best of our knowledge, research on bullying in children with SEN and LD and its association with both the relationship with the teacher and students' social status in the peer group are scarce.…”

School Conflicts: Causes and Management Strategies in Classroom Relationships

“…It is important to work not only on the training of future teachers but also on training in the active teachers in conflict management, small or large, which inevitably emerge in the teacherstudent relationship, throughout their professional life. Also, the Freire et al [42] results support the importance of professional development opportunities with a focus on facilitating the relationship of teachers with students with perceived challenging behavior.…”