Discuss the implications of reporting for teachers parents and learners
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Abstract
Participants were 443 (52.6% male, 47.4% female) ethnically diverse, 1st-grade, lower achieving readers attending 1 of 3 school districts in Texas. Using latent variable structural equation modeling, the authors tested a theoretical model positing that (a) the quality of teachers’ relationships with students and their parents mediates the associations between children’s background characteristics and teacher-rated classroom engagement and that (b) child classroom engagement, in turn, mediates the associations between student–teacher and parent–teacher relatedness and child achievement the following year. The hypothesized model provided a good fit to the data. African American children and their parents, relative to Hispanic and Caucasian children and their parents, had less supportive relationships with teachers. These differences in relatedness may be implicated in African American children’s lower achievement trajectories in the early grades. Implications of these findings for teacher preparation are discussed.
Keywords: student, teacher relationship, home/school relationship, engagement, achievement, ethnicity
Students’ sense of social relatedness at school is a key construct in contemporary theories of academic motivation and engagement (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998; Stipek, 2002). When students experience a sense of belonging at school and supportive relationships with teachers and classmates, they are motivated to participate actively and appropriately in the life of the classroom (Anderman & Anderman, 1999; Birch & Ladd, 1997; Skinner & Belmont, 1993). Students’ sense of belonging at school has been linked both to engaged versus disaffected school identities and to learning outcomes (Battistich, Solomon, Watson, & Schaps, 1997; Skinner, Zimmer-Gembeck, & Connell, 1998). Although the vast majority of the extant research on social relatedness and engagement has been conducted with students in Grades 3 and higher (for reviews, see Furrer & Skinner, 2003, and Stipek, 2002), recent research suggests that children’s social relatedness in the primary grades may establish patterns of school engagement and motivation that have long-term consequences for their academic motivation and achievement (Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999).
Positive relations with teachers in the classroom and between home and school appear to be less common for low-income and racial minority children than for higher income, White students (Entwisle & Alexander, 1988; Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Hill et al., 2004; Kohl, Weissberg, Reynolds, & Kasprow, 1994; Ladd et al., 1999). Furthermore, several researchers have suggested that these early racial and income differences in relatedness may contribute to disparities in achievement (Pianta, Rimm-Kauffman, & Cox, 1999; Pianta & Walsh, 1996). The need to improve the academic achievement among ethnic minority and poor families is one of the most urgent challenges facing education and U.S. society today (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). For example, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (National Center for Education Statistics, 2005c), in 2005, 41% of White fourth graders were proficient in reading, compared with 13% of Black and 16% of Hispanic students. Results for math were similar, with 47% of White students proficient compared with 13% of Black and 19% of Hispanic students. Of great concern is the fact that racial and income disparities in achievement increase with children’s time in school (The Future of Children, 2005).
This study tests a model of early school adaptation that integrates research on the centrality of social factors in students’ academic motivation (Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Furrer & Skinner, 2003; Wentzel, 1999) with research on racial and income disparities in achievement. Specifically, our theoretical model, depicted in Figure 1, posits that children’s background characteristics (gender and race–ethnicity) predict the quality of parent–teacher and student–teacher relationships and that the quality of these relationships has consequences for children’s achievement. Furthermore, we expect that children’s classroom engagement in learning activities is one mechanism by which relationship quality in the early grades affects subsequent achievement. In the next sections, we provide the empirical and theoretical support for each link in this complex model. First, we present evidence on gender and racial disparities in student–teacher and parent–teacher relationship quality. Second, we summarize evidence that student–teacher and parent–teacher relationship quality influences children’s academic motivation and engagement. Third, we present evidence to support the premise that student motivation and engagement in classroom learning activities are the proximal processes accounting for the effect of relationship quality on achievement.