One of us made an internship in a PMI (Protection Maternelle Infantile), whose mission is twofold. It consists in preventing psychological pain (the « prevention » side) and in protecting children in danger (the « protection » side). On the protection side, a great number of children did not leave with their biological parents, but where either hosted by one of their relatives (an aunt, a grand-mother, a cousin…) or by a host families (that is, professionals who are paid to take care of protected children). These children are called « foster children » (enfants placés). In frequent cases, they do not stay in the same family, which, from an attachment perspective, can be extremely detrimental to their emotional stability. Because security and affection needs are innate, foster children, just like any other children, need to find attachment figures other than their biological parents. These attachment figures can be the foster parents (when they have the chance to stay in the same family for a sufficient amount of time) or any other adult likely to respond to their need for affection. A recent study, conducted by Sara Schmitt (Purdue) and her colleagues, and published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, has recently shown that teachers can play this role.
Building on the attachment literature, the authors claim that a close teacher-child relationship may provide foster children with an out-of-home source of support. This source of support not only plays the role of a secure base of attachment ; he or she may also encourage positive behaviors and educational outcomes. This is because when security needs are fulfilled, children are more open to cognitive and social exploration.
The authors used data come from a national study, which enabled them to make up a sample of 260 children living in non-parental care. On average, these children were around 4 years old . Some of them had moved over the past twelve months (a variable called « residential mobility »), while others had not. Also, some of them had developed close relationships with their teachers, while others had not. To measure this variable, the authors used a scientifically validated scale called the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale. Finally, they measured the children’s externalized and internalized problems with a teacher-reported scale : the Adjustment Scales for Preschool Intervention.
They predicted a direct negative effect of residential mobility on children’s externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, and a moderating effect of teacher-child closeness on this relationship. More precisely, they hypothesized that close teacher-child relationships would buffer the effect of mobility. They received strong support for their hypotheses. First of all, they found a significant and negative link between teacher-child closeness and externalizing and internalizing behaviors, meaning that close relationships actually reduce the likelihood of developing behavioral problems. Second of all, mobility was not significantly associated with behavioral problems. And this is because teacher-child closeness does buffer the negative effect of residential mobility. Children who had moved and not developed close relationships with their teachers showed higher levels of behavioral problems that children who had had the chance to develop closer relationships.
To us, this research, whose results are extremely consistent with the attachment theory framework, are extremely interesting because they have concrete applications. Teachers should be encouraged to develop close and warm relationships with the children most « at risk » of developing behavioral problems, namely, foster children. Gathering information on the children’s background and recent history (how many times did they move over the last months ?) would be particularly helpful.