Peer preference, perceived popularity, and the teacher-child relationship in special education

This four-wave longitudinal study examined bidirectional associations among pupils' social status (preference and popularity) and teacher-child relationship characteristics (quality, support, satisfaction, and conflict) in special education. Participants included 586 pupils (86% boys) initially attending Grades 4 and 5 (M-age Wave 1 = 10.82 years, SD = 0.86) and their teachers. Reports of teacher-child relationships were collected from teachers and pupils through questionnaires. Peer nominations were used to assess preference and popularity. Autoregressive cross-lagged models indicated that preference predicted changes in satisfaction between school years. Conflict in the teacher-child relationship predicted preference, and preference and popularity predicted conflict within and between school years. Bidirectionality of the associations depended on the aspect of the teacher-child relationship and the dimension of social status. Conflict was more robustly related to social status than satisfaction, support, and pupil-reported relationship quality. The associations within school years were not more robust than associations between school years.