The correlation between the relationship between teachers and students and the overall atmosphere
and culture of the classroom
Dasha Bunks
Liberty University
PSYC 775 - Teaching of Psychology
Dr. Winn
2022
The correlation between the relationship between teachers and students and the overall atmosphere
and culture of the classroom
When first grade teachers use practices that demonstrate caring toward students and practices that
foster interpersonal skills among students, students are less likely to reject one another (Donahue et al,
2003). In addition, aggressive students who have positive relationships with teachers are more likely to
be accepted by peers than aggressive students who lack positive relationships with their teachers
(Hughes et al., 2001). Ultimately, constructive teacher-student relationships have an important positive
influence on the social skills of difficult as well as typical students (Zins, Elias, Greenberg, & Weissberg,
2000). Such findings suggest that enhancing individual teacher-student relationships has beneficial and
cumulative effects for other aspects of classroom life.
Improving teacher-student relationships is only the first step toward meeting students' emotional and
relational needs. A teacher should also work on producing a caring community of learners. Such efforts
improve the nature of interactions among students and promote students' engagement in school
(Hamre & Pianta, 2005; McCombs, 2004; Meece et al., 2003; Weinberger & McCombs, 2003).
Interventions
Studies have examined the effectiveness of interventions designed to create more caring school and
classroom communities; each has resulted in specific recommendations for improving teacher-student
relationships as well as peer-relationships.
1. The Child Development Project (CDP) focuses on fostering caring peer relationships, including
students in decision-making during classroom meetings, and teaching students to better
understand the feelings, needs and perspectives of others. The goal of CDP is to promote
positive development among students and build upon their strengths. Students exposed to this
intervention feel more positive about school and are more motivated (e.g., showed more task
orientation and greater intrinsic motivation) than their counterparts not receiving this
intervention in elementary school (Solomon, Battistich, Watson, Schaps, & Lewis, 2000).
Likewise, CDP appears to have some long-lasting effects; students enrolled in the CDP
elementary schools were less antisocial and more prosocial in middle school as well (Battistich et
al., 2004). Further, in a district that pressed for high achievement, CDP was linked to positive
effects on achievement outcomes as well as gains in socio-emotional skills.
2. The responsive classroom (RC) approach is a classroom-based intervention designed to
integrate social and academic learning. When RC was examined to determine whether there
were links between the use of its approach and the quality of teacher-student relationships, it
was found that teachers using more RC practices had closer relationships with students in their
classrooms (Baroody, Rimm-Kaufman, Larsen & Curby, 2014; Rimm-Kaufman & Chiu, 2007).
3. The RULER approach is another school-based social-emotional intervention that is designed to
teach students critical skills related to emotions (labeling, expressing, regulating, etc.). This
intervention was developed to align with the language arts curriculum in grades K-12.
Investigations of RULER'S effectiveness have revealed that students whose teachers utilize more
RULER approaches in the classroom demonstrated improved social skills and emotional
intelligence (Reyes, Brackett, Rivers, Elbertson, & Salovey, 2012).
4. Promoting Alternative THinking Strategies (PATHS) is an additional intervention intended to
strengthen the social-emotional learning skills of students in pre-K through grade 6. Primary
goals of the intervention include building problem-solving skills, developing conflict-resolution
strategies, forming positive relationships, and increasing self-control and self-awareness.
Teachers who implemented the PATHS curriculum in the early elementary grades reported
increases in prosocial interactions and higher levels of academic engagement in their classrooms
(Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2010).
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