Poster #182 - Profiles of Attachment: Child-Teacher Relationships in Diverse Early Childhood Settings

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - School Readiness/Childcare

Integrative Statement

Child-teacher relationship quality in early childhood education (ECE) includes the emotional support from teachers during social and instructional interactions, and the attachment schema and cultural expectations of the children involved. The attachment security framework (Bowlby, 1982) has been used to describe relationships in ECE settings. A secure child-teacher relationship allows children to maximally engage in the learning environment whereas children in insecure relationships may devote more energy to avoiding or resisting the teacher, resulting in less learning (Howes & Spieker, 2008).
Cultural factors may contribute to how children express their attachment relationship with their teachers. Previous research documents that Latino children behave in a respectful and deferential manner to their teachers, as part of the cultural notion of bien educado (Fuller & García Coll, 2010). Accordingly, Latino children may be well-behaved but more likely to avoid their teacher and conflict with adults and may form insecure attachments with their teacher, possibly leading to fewer opportunities to engage in learning interactions with adults.
Measurement of child-teacher attachment has taken two forms: teacher report and observational measurement. Previous work suggests that child and teacher characteristics often influence teacher perceptions of their relationships with children and only modest convergence between observed and perceived child-teacher relationship quality (Thijs & Koomen, 2009), highlighting the importance of incorporating both perspectives.
This study used a person-centered approach to identify patterns of child-teacher relationships based on teachers’ reports and independent observations in a diverse low-income sample of 195 3-to-5-year-old children and their teachers. The children were predominantly Latino (65%; African-American, 14%; White, 15%; other, 6%) and drawn from 73 early childhood classroom and family child care programs serving low-income children. We used latent profile analysis (LPA) incorporating teacher’s perceptions (Student-Teacher Relationship Scale, Pianta, 2011), observed attachment behaviors (Attachment Q-sort, Waters, 1990), and observed frequency of socially-integrated interactions between the child and teacher (Modified Observational Rating of the Caregiving Environment [M-ORCE]; Kryzer et al., 2007) to explore whether this combination of measurements could identify groups of children in secure and insecure relationships. We then examined child characteristics, observed classroom instructional and emotional climate (CLASS; La Paro, Pianta, Hamre, & Stuhlman, 2003), and observed teacher scaffolding and didactic strategies (Snapshot; Ritchie, Howes, Kraft-Sayre, & Weiser, 2001) to predict patterns of relationship security.
Three attachment profiles emerged: a secure group (32.31%), an avoidant group (53.85%), and a resistant group (13.85%), suggesting a higher-than-expected rate of avoidant relationships in this heavily-Latino sample (see Figure 1). Higher scores in classroom instructional climate were associated with being in the secure profile, and lower instructional climate was associated with avoidant relationships (see Table 1). The LPA approach provided more insight into patterns of avoidance than would be indicated from teacher observations alone, as the groups did not differ in teacher-reported closeness. In this sample characterized by high numbers of Latino children and low instructional quality, cultural patterns may be playing a role in the development of non-conflictual but avoidant child-teacher relationships, potentially limiting educational and developmental opportunities for children.

Authors

• Allison Sidle Fuligni, California State University, Los Angeles
  Presenting Author

• Alison Gallwey Wishard Guerra, UC San Diego
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sandra L. Soliday Hong, UNC Chapel Hill, FPG Child Development Institute
  Non-Presenting Author

• Linda Lee, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
  Non-Presenting Author

• Carollee Howes, UC Los Angeles
  Non-Presenting Author