The student-Teacher

Relationships of Children Both

with or Without Special Need
in Preschool Classrooms.

Theories explaining the HUMAN

RELATIONSHIP
1. Brofenbrenners Ecological Theory
(Systems Theory)
Examines human & environmental
interactions
One systems change, others are affected.

2. Bowlbys
Attachment Theory
Emphasis on
interaction &
relationship
between mother &
baby

Healthy M-C
Relationship:
Forming positive M-C
Relationship
Develop self esteem,
self expression

4 systems: Micro, Exo,

Meso & Macro
Micro-family, school,
neighbourhood
Exo- relationship beween
micro
Meso- gfamily friends,
mass media, community
servies
Macro- social culture
which children live in

Absence of mother
in preschool leads
children to choose
second attachment
figures.
Figure who spend
lots of time with
them is
the teacher

Children who have SECURE

relationship with mother also forms
SECURE & POSITIVE relationship with
teachers

Relationship with ADULTS:

Develop skills to form relationship with peers, emotional
development, self esteem & school adjustment.
Negative relationship with mother:
Form insecurity, conflictual, dependent relationship with
teachers.
Positive S-T relationship:
Develop social competence & classroom adjustment
Negative S-T relationship:
School avoidance

Factors on Student-Teacher
relationship:

Teachers
Classrooms
Parent
Students

Factor related to Teacher :

Year of experience
- Increased experienced was shown to
be effective
Self-efficacy and depression level
-low teacher self-efficacy and high
level of depression lead to negative
student-teacher relationship.

 Attitude towards life

-positive towards live effect ST
relationship
Gender
- is not an effective factor on ST
relationship
Field of teaching
-graduates of primary school
teaching , preschool teaching had
more positive ST relationship.

Factor Related to Classroom

Effective way in student-teacher
relationship:
Classroom management,
peer relations and
play material

Factor related to Parent :

Factors such as parents educational
level and income were not found to
be effective

Factor related to Student :

Gender
-teacher tend to have closer and less
conflictual relationships with girl.
Ethnicity
-closer, less conflictual and dependent
relationships with their teacher.

 Temperament and problem

behaviours
-correlated with conflict studentteacher relationship
social behaviour
-positive social behaviour increase
close student-teacher

Examining the Student-Teacher

Relationships of Children Both
With & Without Special Needs in
Preschool Classroom
Discussion

With Special Needs (SN)

Students with SN have more conflict but
less closeness with their teachers.
They have more negative relationship with
their teachers (Blacher et al., 2009;
Eisenhower et al., 2007)
Impact of social skills and problem
behaviours.

Without Special Needs (SN)

Depends on their social skills and
behaviours.
Students with more problem
behaviours have more conflicts with
their teachers.
Students with better social skills
have closer relationship with their
teachers.

Findings
Problem behaviour.
Social skills
Special needs students have more
conflict and less closeness with their
teachers.

Argument
Students with SN had less
dependency with their teachers.
(article)
Students with SN had more
dependency on their teachers than
their peers without SN (Blacher et al.,
2009; Eisenhower et al., 2007)

Why?
Cultural factors of research setting (Turkey)
Turkish teachers had closer, more dependent, and
less conflictual relationships with students than
American teachers (Beyazkurk & Kesner, 2005)
Turkish family structure and its nature
Valuing characteristics such as family bond, dependency
and obedience are dominant (Kagitcibasi, 1990)

Mother-child relationship affect the students-teacher

relationship.

Cont
Mainstream practices during
preschool
Teachers characteristic
Teachers knowledge and skills
Inadequate knowledge affects them on how
they handle the problem behaviour of
students with SN.

Teachers attitude about students

with SN
Most cases are positive
However, it can change due to some factors

Increased level of impairment

Having more experience
Not happy with their income
Having a special need student in class
Do not have a teacher assistant in the classroom

It can affect how teachers relate to students

with SN in the classroom.

Problem Behaviors
A lot of studies show that problem behaviors are
strong predicators of conflictual student-teacher
relationship.
PB is behaviors which prevent a student from
effectively functioning in the classroom and
endangers both their safety and their peers.
Also seen as behaviors which negatively affect
the learning of new skill, their use, and the
social interaction of a student with their
environment.
PB + the ve impact = -ve STRS

Social Skills
SC is skill which is exhibited for interacting
with others, differentiated in terms of setting
and situation, and enable us to predict social
results in certain environments.
Individuals with sufficient social skills can:
easily interact with individual among them.
Obtain information from ind. among them
Leave +ve impression
Easily form and maintain +ve relationship
High social acceptance
SC + +ve impact = +veSTRS

Cont

Classroom Size
Classroom
size will impact the dependency

of students with their teacher.

Large classroom sizes negatively affect
mainstreaming, and schools and classrooms
are not prepared for mainstreaming.
Large classroom = lack of materials, tools,
experts and assistant teachers.
Large classroom leave less time for
teachers who are alone in their classrooms
to spend with each child.

The End !