Do Teacher–Child Relationship and Friendship Quality Matter for Children's School Engagement and Academic Skills?

Abstract

This study examined three competing models assessing the directional associations between the quality of children's relationships with teachers and friends (i.e., closeness and conflict) and their emotional and behavioral school engagement (i.e., the relationship-driven, engagement-driven, and transactional models). The additive contributions of relationship quality and school engagement to prospective academic skills and age-related differences in these associations were also assessed. Models were tested using autoregressive, cross-lagged path analyses. Participants were 461 low-income, ethnically diverse children from kindergarten to Grade 3, who were assessed three times in one school term. In support of the relationship-driven model, closeness with friends and conflict with teachers and friends predicted prospective emotional engagement. In support of the transactional model, friendship closeness and teacher–child and friendship conflict transacted with behavioral engagement over the school term. Higher emotional engagement and, unexpectedly, friendship conflict predicted higher prospective academic skills. Associations between relationship closeness and behavioral engagement were significant for older children only.

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