The role of teachers in elementary classroom social dynamics

Scott D. GestHuman Development & Family Studies

Penn State

Collaborators

• Penn State– Tom Farmer– Rebecca Madill– Kathleen Zadzora– Deborah Temkin– Rachel Abenavoli– Gwen Kreamer– Larissa Witmer– Kristen Granger

• U of Illinois– Philip Rodkin– Travis Wilson– Hae-Jeong Ahn– Ramin Karimpour– Jennifer Heinhorst

Funding: William T. Grant & Spencer FoundationsInstitute of Education Sciences

“It is common knowledge that the success of a teacher…depends as much on the social atmosphere he [or she] creates as on his [or her] mastering…the laws of learning....Still, the psychologist who has spent an immense amount of time studying learning curves has left the problems of social management in education almost entirely to the practitioner, who is forced to base his [or her] procedure on the primitive method of trial and error, or upon a peculiar mix of philosophy and instinct.” - Kurt Lewin (1943, p. 115)

-- Norman Gronlund, Sociometry in the Classroom, 1959

What role, if any, should teachers play in managing children’s social relationships in the classroom?

• “Oh that starts from Day 1, I think it’s very important.”

• “I think the teacher’s a role model, and I think you have to go to children who might have issues and discuss with them why they’re not getting along, what a particular issues might be and see whether it might be resolved….”

• “The love. We need to show more love to show children how to respect us and one another and themselves. Out of books, out of everything that we have to teach our children, it’s not books, it’s love.”

• “I think I should lead by example. Only interfere when I see that there might be an issue that could hurt one of the students. I like to, honestly, I like to step back and deal with it pretty much unless it’s an issue that needs interference.”

How does your role in children’s relationships fit with your instructional objectives?

• If there’s a lot of conflict in the classroom there won’t be a lot of learning. So it’s very closely related – can’t separate one from the other. You have to have a positive atmosphere to have a good learning atmosphere.

• I think it’s important because those children that would never respond or are afraid to respond for fear of being poked fun at or going to have the wrong answer. I’ve let myself have the wrong answer sometimes so they could see that you’re going get wrong answers sometimes.

How much time should you spend on this relative to other ways you might spend your time?

• I think it’s an all-day thing for me. I don’t think I could teach and not do it, to tell you the truth. It’s an ongoing thing for me.

• I think at the beginning of the year I spent more time dealing with relationships and possible conflicts. But toward the end of the year we’ve got an established routine where it’s not quite as major an issue.

Progress in understanding classroom social dynamics

• We know much more about individual-student-level patterns– connections between individual-level behavior & adjustment

• We know much less about classroom-level dynamics

– Teachers are generally mediocre judges of students’ friendships and social status

– What classroom peer relationship patterns are associated with positive student outcomes?

– What can teachers do to promote optimal peer relationship patterns?

General Teaching Practices

- Instructional support- Classroom organization- Emotional support

Classroom Peer Ecology

-Cohesiveness-Status Hierarchies-Behavioral norms

Network-related Teaching Practices

- Peer network knowledge- Grouping practices- Managing status & agg

Youth Outcomes- Achievement- Aggression, victimization- School bonding

-- 2 sites, 5 years, at the end of the day over 200 1st/3rd/5th grade classrooms-- 3 waves per year; multimethod design

Classroom

Child

Conceptual Model

Teacher knowledge of peer networks

• Generally not great, but huge variations• Correlation between teacher-reported and

peer-reported friendships & groups– Median r = .35 - .45– Maximum r = .70 - .80– Minimum r = .00 - .10

Cohesiveness (1)friendship reciprocity is higher

in classrooms observed to be emotionally supporitve

Cohesiveness (2)

• Students express more positive sentiments toward one another (i.e., greater ratio of liking:disliking nominations) in classrooms in which teachers• place a very strong emphasis on separating students

displaying behavior problems• report a high level of sympathy and support for shy-

withdrawn students

Egalitarian vs. Hierarchical Groups

Bulldogs win Red Devils lose

(Sherif, 1956, Scientific American p. 57)

Status Hierarchies

• Girls’ status hierarchies are less extreme – the status system is more egalitarian -- in classrooms where teachers report that they use grouping strategies (e.g., seating charts) to:• promote new friendships• promote academic diversity

Behavioral Norms (1)peer social sanctions for behaviors vary across classrooms

Interrelations among norms & status hierarchies:

Aggressors are more popular in hierarchical peer ecologies

Garandeau, Ahn, & Rodkin (Dev Psych, in press)

Some next steps• Learn how teachers think about these issues– In their own words– Rating the importance and use of different management

strategies– Example: seating charts

• Consider individual-differences in how students adapt in different classroom contexts

• Build toward professional development intervention:– increase ‘attunement’ to network dynamics– Increase use of ‘best practices’