The quality of student-teacher relationships plays an important role in a child’s educational experiences. Empirically, students who possess positive relationships with their teachers have an increased likelihood of positive school attitudes as well as positive school “outcomes” such as higher grades. Children with conflicted student-teacher relationships are at increased risk for academic problems such as poor grades and repeating a grade. It is therefore important to consider not only what the child brings into the classroom, but also what kind of relationship evolves in order to minimize factors contributing to lower student-teacher quality.

The current investigation uses an attachment theory perspective to look at student-teacher quality. It is longitudinal in design, with four goals relating to change in student-teacher relationships from one school grade to the next: (1) to document stability and change in teacher-reported relationship quality, (2) to test whether children who engage in more externalizing behaviors have poorer student-teacher relationships, as reported by the teacher, (3) to see if teachers rated higher in negativity and lower in social connectedness report poorer quality student-teacher relationships, and (4) to see if teachers rated higher in warmth and sensitivity report positive student-teacher relationships.

Participants are 24 first and second grade students from urban, low–income homes, attending a public elementary school. The investigation uses previously collected data from the 2004-2005 school year and follow-up data collected during the 2005-2006 school year. Data were collected via parent reports, teacher ratings, and classroom observations of teacher and student behavior.

Cluster analysis is used to describe results from Year 2. Three clusters emerged regarding student-teacher relationship quality: positive, average, and high conflict/low closeness relationships. Results are only descriptive in nature and need to be individualized; factors that may have shaped student-teacher relationship quality (e.g., student disruptive behaviors, teacher emphasis on control in the classroom, and “goodness of fit” between student and teacher interactions) in one case are not of equal importance in another one. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the empirical use of teacher-reported STR construct as well as their implications for future research and training.