2-180 - Classroom Social Climate in Adolescence: Peers and Teachers

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Adolescents spend much of their time at school. The social climate of the classroom (i.e., the quality of peer relationships and teacher-student relationships) is important for students’ academic and social functioning. Typically, the influences of peers and teachers have been studied separately. The aim of this symposium is to bring both fields together to obtain an integrated picture of classroom social climate that incorporates the influences of both peers and teachers. In four studies, classroom social climate will be examined using multiple sources of information and assessments in both European and American school systems.
Study 1 will examine the effects of collective peer behaviors (norms) in the classroom on the association between early adolescents’ behavior and their social status. Results revealed that peer norms impacted the behavior-likeability association but not the behavior-popularity association. Study 2 will focus on the effect of teachers’ behavior on students’ likeability and popularity showing that teachers function as a social referent and thereby influence adolescents’ social status with peers. Study 3 will address teacher attunement and its association with adolescent peer relations and outcomes. Teacher attunement to peer victimization decreased students’ perceptions of bullying which led to greater belonging. Study 4 will address the unique effects of belonging to peers and belonging to teachers on adolescents’ motivation and affective functioning when transferring to high school. Results indicated that belonging to peers and teachers both predicted motivation and affective functioning, whereas peer belongingness also predicted change in motivation and affect.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chairs

• Henrike Boor-Klip, Radboud University Nijmegen

• Antonius H. N. Cillessen, Radboud University Nijmegen

Individual Presentations

• Effects of Classroom Peer Norms on the Association between Adolescent Behavior and Status: Comparing Likeability and Popularity - Presenting Author: Henrike Boor-Klip, Radboud University Nijmegen; Antonius H. N. Cillessen, Radboud University Nijmegen; Marloes M. H. G. Hendrickx, Utrecht University; Eliane Segers, Radboud University Nijmegen

• The Teacher as a Social Referent for Adolescents’ Social Status - Presenting Author: Marloes M. H. G. Hendrickx, Utrecht University; M. Tim Mainhard, Utrecht University; Henrike Boor-Klip, Radboud University Nijmegen; Mieke Brekelmans, Utrecht University

• Improving the School Context of Early Adolescence Through Teacher Attunement to Victimization: Effects on School Belonging - Presenting Author: Kate Norwalk, UNC-CH; Jill Hamm, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

• Adolescent Concerns about Belongingness with Peers and Teachers over the Transition to High School - Presenting Author: Alexis Williams, Univ of Maryland College Park; Kathryn Wentzel, Univ of Maryland; Robert M. Tomback, Abt Associates Inc