Peer Reviewed Articles on Teacher-child Relationships in Early Childhood Education

Introduction

Children'southward interactions with their teachers and peers are both salient features of the classroom surroundings and figure prominently in theories concerning children'south development and learning (Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006). Studies find that positive interactions with teachers and with peers and the style in which teachers manage interpersonal interactions in the classroom influence children'south concurrent and long-term social, emotional, and academic development (e.thou., Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996; Jerome et al., 2009; Hosan and Hoglund, 2017; Ladd et al., 2017). Withal, much of the extant literature has considered the influence of teachers and peers separately (Hughes and Im, 2016; Wang et al., 2016). Consequently, nosotros know footling near the roles of teachers in optimizing children'southward perceptions of their peer social experiences and whether teacher influences are higher up and beyond children's actual peer social interactions. This an important gap in knowledge considering researchers have argued that children's perceptions of their peer social experiences might exist more predictive of their social and psychological well-beingness and school success than their bodily peer interactions (Betts et al., 2013; Troop-Gordon et al., 2019; Önder et al., 2019). Thus, the current study examines multiple levels of teacher influences, including teacher–child relationships (i.eastward., closeness and conflict) at the child-level and teachers' classroom management of interpersonal interactions at the classroom-level, on 2 aspects of peer social experiences from children's perspective: peer social support and peer victimization.

Significance of Kid-Perceived Peer Social Experiences

Peer social support and peer victimization are 2 important aspects of children's classroom experiences. Peer social support refers to supportive behaviors from peers that can enhance children's functioning and resilience to difficulties (Bakalım and Taşdelen-Karçkay, 2016). Bakalım and Taşdelen-Karçkay argued that peer social support provides children with emotional comfort that protects children confronting 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, bookish attitudes, and accomplishment (Coolahan et al., 2000; Bursal, 2017). Thus, peer social support is considered as a primary indicator of schoolhouse adaptiveness and bookish success from preschool through uncomplicated school and higher up (Coolahan et al., 2000; Blandon et al., 2010).

Peer victimization, on the other hand, has been linked with schoolhouse maladjustment, which refers to physical and emotional harms children receive from peers, such equally being striking and teased. Studies find that peer victimization is a precursor of loneliness and school avoidance (Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996; Buhs and Ladd, 2001) and is associated with depression self-esteem, low, external behavioral bug, and academic failure (Olweus, 1992; Alsaker, 1993; Blandon et al., 2010; Ladd et al., 2017). Researchers study that children who experience peer victimization tend to exist 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 (Buhs and Ladd, 2001; Blandon et al., 2010).

Although children's perceptions of their peer social experiences are related to their actual peer social interactions (Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996), but 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 reverberate children'southward competency in peer interactions, which is associated with their learning behaviors and school success (Coolahan et al., 2000; Blandon et al., 2010). Specifically, 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 existence isolated past peers (Cacioppo and Hawkley, 2009; Danese et al., 2009).

Differentiating perceived from actual peer social experience is also meaningful because children's perceptions might exist more strongly associated with their social and emotional well-beingness. On the one hand, children's perceptions of their peer social experiences can shape their self-perceptions or self-worth, which tin can and so influence children'due south social behaviors (Ogelman et al., 2019) and their levels of existence liked past peers (Önder et al., 2019). Önder et al. explained that self-perception reflects 1'due south 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 probable to be passive and timid in peer interactions, which would contribute to their being less liked past 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, co-ordinate to social information processing theories, would shape their behavioral and emotional responses to time to come interpersonal events. Some suggest that perceived isolation tends to result in more severe and enduring consequences than objective isolation, considering the perceptions of being isolated can change individuals' social reasoning and data processing (Cacioppo and Hawkley, 2009; Danese et al., 2009). Specifically, Cacioppo and Hawkley explained that the perception of existence isolated by peers may trigger children's confirmatory and memorial bias and can lead to their negative interpretations of peers' social moves, which in plough may contribute to children's misbehaviors and emotional maladaptiveness. Hence, although perceived and bodily peer social experiences are rarely distinguished in the broader sense of peer social experience, it stands to reason that perceived peer social back up and perceived peer victimization would shape children's understandings about themselves and near others. Therefore, there is a need to examine factors that may influence children'due south perceptions of their peer social experiences.

Instructor Influences on Peer Social Experiences

Also peers, teachers stand for another key dimension of classroom environmental (Hamre and Pianta, 2001; Jerome et al., 2009). As noted earlier, however, interactions with teachers and interactions with peers tend to be discussed separately (Hughes and Im, 2016; Wang et al., 2016), except for merely a few studies every bit elaborated below; such work has suggested that teachers' relationships with individual children and their classroom social direction 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 considering teacher–child interactions can be observed by all classmates, which helps classmates draw inferences most children's attributes and likeability and form a classroom consensus nigh children's reputations (Hughes and Im, 2016). Further, instructor–child closeness is grounded in positive interactions, such equally warm and open communications, between a teacher and a kid (Birch and 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 date in classroom activities and their social competences and peer acceptance (due east.g., Birch and Ladd, 1997; Pianta and Stuhlman, 2004; Hall-Lande et al., 2007; Gest and Rodkin, 2011). Children with shut relationships with teachers may also receive greater support from teachers, which contributes to their social and academic development (Hamre and Pianta, 2001). On the contrary, instructor–child conflicts contribute to peer disliking besides every bit school avoidance, externalizing behaviors, and decreased prosocial behaviors and cooperation (Hamre and Pianta, 2001; Hughes and Im, 2016).

At the classroom-level, teachers' classroom direction 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'south social needs and to afford developmental opportunities for children to positively interact with peers from diverse backgrounds (Farmer et al., 2019). A commonly used tool to capture classroom social management is the Classroom Cess Scoring System (CLASS; Hamre and Pianta, 2007; Pianta et al., 2008; Downer et al., 2012), which features three domains of classroom management based on social and instructional interpersonal interactions (i.e., emotional support, classroom organisation, and instructional support). These 3 domains are further categorized into ix dimensions. The electric current study includes 4 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 beliefs direction, 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 amid children, through which children develop social and emotional competences, reduce problematic behaviors, and get less vulnerable to peer victimizations (Hamre and Pianta, 2001; Cappella and Neal, 2012; Downer et al., 2012).

Although teachers tin influence children'south peer social experiences via multiple avenues as reviewed above, few studies have taken into business relationship different levels of teacher influences simultaneously. Farmer et al. (2019) discussed that teachers are not only members in the classroom society interacting directly with private children, but, at the same time, they too are leaders who act every bit an authority and a facilitator to manage classroom dynamics and to ensure children following the rules. Hence, the current written report aims to capture teachers' multi-faceted roles to have a more comprehensive understanding of teacher influence on children'south peer social experiences in the classroom.

The Electric current Study

The current report 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 than frequently than that in the later grades (Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996; Ladd et al., 2017). Thus, there is a need to investigate teacher roles in managing classroom social dynamics during children's chief years of schooling.

Although in that location has been some research examining certain teacher influence on children'southward peer social experiences, it is not clear whether teacher influences operate above and beyond the influence of children'southward actual peer social interactions. For the purpose of this report, 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 virtually important source of peer support, which provides children with a context for skill conquering and development and helps children to validate their shared beliefs and identifies (Ladd et al., 1996; Gifford-Smith and Brownell, 2003). Farther, compared to unilateral friendships (i.due east., i child identifies the other as a friend only not vice versa), reciprocal friendships (i.east., children mutually identify each other as friends) tend to have college quality, are more stable, and, therefore provide greater peer support (e.1000., Quinn and 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 get beyond dyadic antipathy and would be contributed greater past grouping-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 instructor influence on child-perceived peer social back up and peer victimization in the spring of the academic year when decision-making for those in the fall. Teacher influences include teachers' closeness and conflict with individual children and their classroom social direction at the classroom-level equally represented by observations of positive climate, negative climate, instructor sensitivity, and behavior management. A sub-aim is to determine whether the above instructor influences on children-perceived social experiences are unique and operate beyond the influence of their bodily peer interactions manifested as the number of reciprocal friendships and classroom reputation of peer victimization.

Materials and Methods

Participants

This study is part of a big 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 ii big school districts in a Midwestern state. Recruitment procedures were carried out in accordance with protocols to protect man subjects as approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the academy.

Before the school year started, advisory 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 boosted 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 ain background data. Consented children were administered direct assessments in fall and bound of the school yr.

The sample included 43 schools, 183 classrooms, and ii,678 consented children. Every bit summarized in Table 1, fifty% of the participating children were girls, 66% were White, and thirteen% 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 college). Xl-five per centum of the children's mothers completed four-twelvemonth higher education or higher. At the classroom level, an average classroom had 22 children (range = 12–29). Teachers were mostly female (97%), White (96%), and not-Hispanic (99%). On average, they were 38 years old with 13 years of instruction experience. Ninety-four pct of the teachers had a bachelor'southward degree or higher, and 82% had a teaching certificate.

Tabular array 1. Sample description.

Measures

To address the aims of the electric current study, nosotros included measures of child-perceived peer social experiences, teacher–child relationships, classroom social management, and actual peer social interactions. Children'due south 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 autumn and spring of the school year, ane-on-one kid interviews were conducted past trained enquiry staff in quiet areas of the schoolhouse hallway, and responses were recorded using a tablet in accordance with the approved report protocols. Based on previous studies of peer relationship and children's school aligning (Asher et al., 1984; Ladd, 1990; Kochenderfer and Ladd, 1996; Waters et al., 2012), the research team adult measures of perceived peer social support comprising a total of eleven items (due east.m., "How often would kids in your class help y'all if yous 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 form e'er hit you?" and "Does anyone in your form e'er say mean things to you?"). All items used a iii-point frequency calibration (0 = Never, 1 = Sometimes, 2 = A lot), and the internal consistency (Cronbach'south blastoff) ranged from 0.75 to 0.78 across scales and time points. The responses from items on the same scale were averaged to create composite scores for each child. In the assay, jump scores were used as outcomes, and fall scores were included equally covariates.

Instructor–Child Relationships

In the fall, teachers reported on their closeness and conflict with each child using the Student–Instructor Human relationship Scale (Pianta, 2001). The closeness subscale included seven items (e.thou., "I share an affectionate, warm human relationship with this kid" and "If upset, this child will seek comfort from me") and the disharmonize subscale independent viii items (east.g., "This child and I always seem to be struggling with each other" and "Dealing with 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 0.88 to 0.94). For assay, the mean score of each subscale of the teacher–child relationship was calculated for each child.

Classroom Social Management

Teacher'south classroom social direction was captured in the winter with the Classroom Cess Scoring System (Form, Pianta et al., 2008). As noted earlier, although the original Grade includes nine dimensions, the electric current study focuses on four dimensions mainly from the social domain, including (one) positive climate, which reflects the warmth, respect, and enjoyment communicated past exact and non-exact 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 instructor'south sensation and responsiveness to the diverse needs of individual children and the entire form, and (4) behavior management, which encompasses the teacher'south use of clear behavioral expectations and effective methods to prevent and redirect misbehavior. In each classroom, trained and reliable research staff conducted 2 30-min observation cycles, where observers live-coded the teacher's practice or beliefs equally it contributed to the overall classroom environment on scales of ane to vii (1 = minimally characteristic, vii = highly characteristic). Blended scores for each dimension were created by averaging beyond the two cycles. To ensure reliability, research staff completed extensive training sessions before entering the field, and ongoing quality checks were conducted via biweekly migrate meetings. In addition, 20% of all in-field observations were double-coded, and inter-rater agreement (i.e., two coders scored within one signal of difference on the same dimension) ranged from 0.ninety to 0.92.

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 and Asher, 1992), which has been constitute valid for children as young as preschoolers (Daniel et al., 2016; Chen et al., 2020). 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 listing of names of their classmates. For each child, nosotros 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 past dividing classroom size minus one, the maximum possible value, to allow the indices to be compared across classrooms.

Analytical Approach

Nosotros employed multilevel regression models to investigate the effects of teacher influence on children's perception of peer social experiences, given that children (level-one) were nested within classrooms (level-two). Two outcomes were examined, namely the child-perceived peer social support and child-perceived peer victimization in the spring. For each consequence, we first ran unconditional multilevel models where child outcomes were clustered past classrooms, to determine the per centum of observed variance attributable to classroom differences. Second, nosotros fitted conditional multilevel models (Model one), examining the association between teacher–kid relationships and instructor classroom direction 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 past teachers in spring, child race reported past caregivers (dichotomized into White vs. not-White), grade level, and school district. Finally, we included actual peer social interactions (i.eastward., reciprocal friendship and classroom reputation of peer victimization) as covariates to exam whether teacher influences contribute to children'due south perceptions to a higher place and across their actual peer social interactions (Model 2). All models were fit in R with the lmer bundle (Bates et al., 2015) with maximum likelihood estimation. Missing information were listing-wise deleted. The proportion of missing for each variable is reported in Table 1.

Results

Equally shown in Table 2, children generally perceived that they had some peer social back up, both in autumn and in jump (mean = 1.32 and 1.35) with 75–79% reporting scores between i (Sometimes) and two (A lot). The mean of kid-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 trivial over one-half of children (55% in fall and 51% in spring), withal, perceived experiencing some victimization, with scores greater than 0 (Never) simply less than i (Sometimes). In terms of teacher–child relationships, teachers reported moderate to loftier levels of closeness (M = 3.13 out of iv) and depression levels of disharmonize (M = 0.63 out of 4). Additionally, the classrooms were rated as having moderate quality in terms of teacher sensitivity (Chiliad = iv.65 out of 7), behavior direction (M = 5.42 out of seven), and positive climate (One thousand = v.52 out of seven), and were scored very high in the area of negative climate (suggesting the absence of negativity; M = 6.92 out of vii). Finally, in terms of actual peer social interactions, children had reciprocal friendships with viii% of their classmates (range = 0–38%) and were nominated equally "being picked on or teased" by four% of their classmates (range = 0–80%).

Table ii. Descriptives of key study variables.

Pairwise correlations are presented in Tabular array three. There was a moderate correlation between child-perceived peer experiences in the autumn and the spring (0.41–0.55). Kid-perceived peer victimization was negatively correlated with teachers' behavior management scores (−0.25 to −0.twenty), and child-perceived peer victimization in the spring was also negatively correlated with teachers' power to promote a positive climate (−0.16). In addition, teacher–child closeness and conflict were negatively correlated (−0.27), and the four Class indices were positively correlated (0.17–0.seventy).

Table 3. Pearson correlation coefficients amid key study variables.

Teacher Influences on Child-Perceived Peer Social Experiences

The primary aim of the current study was to examine the associations between instructor–child relationships and teachers' classroom social direction 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 (<0.01) was attributable to differences between classrooms, and 97% (0.fifteen) was due to individual differences. For perceived peer victimization, xiv% of the variance (0.04) was accountable by classroom-level differences, while 86% of the variation (0.25) was betwixt children.

Side by side, our focal instructor predictors of interest were included in Model 1 (Table 4). Results showed that, after controlling for autumn responses on kid-perceived peer social experiences and other covariates, instructor–child closeness significantly predicted child-perceived peer social support (b = 0.04, p < 0.01) and instructor–child conflict predicted child-perceived peer victimization (b = 0.10, p < 0.001). Specifically, with one additional unit increment 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.ten units. At the classroom level, teachers' beliefs management was negatively associated with kid-perceived peer victimization (b = −0.07, p < 0.05). A unit of measurement increase in beliefs management (on a scale of ane to vii) was associated with 0.07 unit of measurement 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 actress classroom-level variance for kid-perceived peer social support was accounted for by the higher up variables, which might be considering there was originally little classroom-level variance (4%) in full as suggested by the unconditional model.

Table 4. Predicting kid-perceived peer social support and peer victimization in bound: Model 1.

Finally, to make up one's mind whether the associations reported above were unique, nosotros included children'southward actual peer social interactions in Model two (Table 5), which were operationalized equally 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 < 0.001) and classroom reputation of peer victimization was predictive of self-perceived peer victimization (b = 0.94, p < 0.001), the above-reported clan associations were stable and remained meaning.

Table 5. Predicting child-perceived peer social support and peer victimization in jump: Model 2.

Discussion

The electric current written report examined the coaction among teachers, children, and peers as actors in the classroom social ecology during early schoolhouse years. Specifically, nosotros focused on the influences of teacher–kid closeness and conflict and instructor's classroom social management on child-perceived peer social back up and peer victimization. The current written report expands on the existing literature by, first, simultaneously taking into account teachers' roles as classroom members who form closeness and disharmonize with individual children and as leaders who shape classroom social dynamics, and, second, past further highlighting the critical roles of teachers in shaping children's perceptions of their peer social experiences, subsequently controlling for children's actual peer social interactions. The major findings are discussed below.

Get-go, it is evidenced that teacher influence at the private-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 instructor and individual children, our findings showed that teacher-reported closeness and conflict with children in the autumn contributed to peer social back up and peer victimization perceived by children in the bound respectively, controlling for the fall scores. This finding indicates that children with shut relationships with teachers tend to feel more socially supported past peers and that children who have conflicts with teachers tend to experience increased perceived peer victimization over the bookish 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 and Im, 2016), which foster a classroom consensus regarding children'south reputations and therefore influence classmates' interactions with the children. Information technology is also probable that positive teacher–child relationships tin promote children's cooperative engagement in classroom activities and improves their social competence, while with negative teacher–child relationships, children may avert school and demonstrate more externalizing beliefs problems and less prosocial behaviors during interpersonal interactions (Hamre and Pianta, 2001; Hughes and Im, 2016).

Second, regarding teachers' classroom social management, our findings showed that amend 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 meliorate managed and redirected, child-perceived peer victimization decreases over time. This finding is aligned with literature showing that well-managed classrooms are associated with greater social and academic development and with reduction of beliefs problems (Emmer and Stough, 2001; Downer et al., 2012). Kochenderfer-Ladd and Pelletier (2008) farther discussed that, when teachers do not consider bullying as a normative behavior in the classroom, they would be more likely to intervene toward negative peer social interactions rather than expecting the victims to handle the incidences on their ain, which has been establish associated with lower levels of peer victimization in the classroom.

However, it is surprising that the other classroom social direction 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 electric current written report. It might be that the influence of teacher sensitivity and classroom climate on children's classroom social experiences might be more indirect than behavioral direction and could take a longer time to alter children's peer social experiences. Another possibility from the measurement perspective is that, every bit reported in the result department, 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 issue. Time to come 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'south perceptions of their social experiences operate in a manner that is unique and across children's bodily 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.

Children'due south perceptions of their peer social experiences emerge based on their social interactions, which then may reflect their self-evaluation of social competence equally well as beliefs about peers (Coolahan et al., 2000; Blandon et al., 2010). Our results betoken that every bit a fellow member and an authoritative figure in the classroom, teachers play a disquisitional role in shaping children's beliefs well-nigh 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. Information technology is possible that, contained from bodily 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 and Im, 2016), and can promote the classroom inclusiveness; in turn, this may reduce problematic social behaviors and assist children become less vulnerable to peer victimizations (Cappella and Neal, 2012). However, the current written report does not depict 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, at that place are a few limitations in the current study. First, teacher–child relationships were assessed at a single time point. Yet, these relationships may vary across the academic year, as suggested by Hughes and Im (2016) who showed that the average i-twelvemonth stability of teacher–child closeness and conflict were 0.38 and 0.57 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 business relationship for the change throughout an academic twelvemonth in terms of children's perceived classroom social experiences and teachers' classroom social management. Second, at the classroom-level, teachers can shape classroom interpersonal interactions through many other ways besides classroom social direction, such equally seating arrangements, grouping strategies, types of activities, and responsibilities afforded to children (Farmer et al., 2019). While the current report has taken into business relationship multiple levels of teacher influences, future inquiry may have a more systematic and comprehensive view when examining teacher influences on classroom social dynamics. 3rd, when representing children's actual peer social interactions, although the electric current study tried to select the nigh representative indicators (e.yard., reciprocal friendships and classroom reputation of peer victimization), other aspects of peer social interactions tin contribute to perceived peer social back up, 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'southward perceptions provide a unique perspective of their peer social experiences. However, their perceptions tin can be biased, and so can teacher reports of their relationships with children. Hereafter studies may consider using more objective measures to capture peer social experience and teacher–kid relationships. Finally, caution is warranted when generalizing findings from the current study. Although the written report sample represented a wide range of families from various backgrounds, families were drawn from ii school districts in a unmarried Midwestern state in the U.s.a.. Additionally, teachers who were willing to participate in this study and to exist observed by researchers might take demonstrated relatively college classroom social direction skills considering the majority of them had a bachelor's degree or college. Accordingly, replication with different samples, measures, and methods is an important future management.

In all, the electric current study demonstrated that teachers can influence children's perceptions of their peer social experiences simultaneously through their closeness and disharmonize with individual children and through their classroom social management. Additionally, such teacher influences on children's perceptions are unique from children's bodily peer social interactions. Findings underscore the need for teachers to develop close relationships with individual children and to eliminate disharmonize 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, equally the leaders in the classrooms, managing and redirecting misbehaviors can better 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.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding writer.

Ideals Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by The Ohio State University. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardian/side by side of kin.

Writer Contributions

JC conceptualized this study, conducted the analysis, and drafted the manuscript. HJ wrote the method and results sections. LJ, T-JL, KP, and AA provided disquisitional review of the manuscript. LJ, T-JL, and KP acquired the fiscal back up for the project leading to this publication. All authors read and approved the submitted version of the manuscript.

Funding

The research reported here was supported by the Institute for Instruction Sciences, through Grant R305N160024 awarded to The Ohio State University (Justice). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and exercise not represent views of the Institute or National Center for Education Research.

Disharmonize of Interest

The authors declare that the enquiry was conducted in the absence of whatsoever commercial or fiscal relationships that could be construed equally a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the research team, staff, and families without whom this research would not have been possible.

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