Understanding the Benefits of Teachers' Knowledge of Student Friendships

TITLE: Understanding the Benefits of Teachers’ Knowledge of Student Friendships

ABSTRACT BODY: Teachers’ knowledge of the existing friendship ties in their classrooms may be an important precondition for teachers to effectively use their “invisible hand” in managing classroom social dynamics (Hamm et al., 2011). For example, teachers’ overall level of attunement to the classroom social structure is positively associated with students’ sense of school belonging (Hamm et al., 2010). It is not clear, however, whether teachers may be especially attuned to the friendship patterns of particular students in their classrooms, and whether such differential attunement is associated with changes in student adjustment across a school year. The present study asks three questions: (1) For which children do teachers have higher teacher friendship knowledge (TFK)? (2) Is TFK associated with students’ sense of belonging? (3) Does TFK predict changes in children’s aggression, rejection, and victimization?

Methods: Participating children (N = 1273) were in 69 1^st-, 3^rd-and 5^th-grade classrooms and were assessed three times across a school year; preliminary results are based on 39 classrooms. Children circled the names of friends; teachers indicated each child’s “close friends.” Teachers completed a Student Behavior Profile and children reported their perceived Victimization, Sense of Peer Community, and Teacher Closeness.

Results: TFK was calculated as the proportion of a teacher’s errors of omission (i.e., not identifying a friendship claimed by a child) minus the proportion of commissions (i.e., identifying a friendship not claimed by a child). Teachers were most accurate in identifying the friendships of children they rated as more popular, more effortful in their schoolwork, higher-achieving (for boys) and more prosocial (for girls; all p’s < .05); teachers were less accurate identifying the friendships of aggressive children. In multilevel models controlling for Fall child adjustment, Fall TFK predicted lower teacher-rated aggression (p < .01), child-reported victimization (p < .05), and rejection (p< .10) at the end of the school year.

Conclusions: Teachers were most accurate in identifying the friends of well-adjusted children and least accurate in identifying the friends of aggressive children. Friendship knowledge predicted changes in student adjustment across the school years such that when teachers knew the friends of aggressive, victimized, and rejected children, the children benefitted. Future work will consider how teachers use their knowledge of friendships to capitalize on positive peer influence, for example, through seating arrangements and reading groups.