This chapter examines the expanding body of research that demonstrates the central role of teacher‐student relationships and its reciprocal effect on students' learning, achievement, and school engagement and teachers' sense of efficacy, job satisfaction and retention in teaching. Pianta and colleagues review current work on teacher‐student relationships that has identified qualitative and quantitative parameters in relational processes between children and adults and the central role of relationships in affecting overall school climate and student performance. In the final section ideas for future research are presented that include, assessments of multi‐level and multi‐system influences such as culture, policy and biological processes on classroom relations and processes.

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This study applies multi-level analysis to student reports of effective teacherstudent interactions in 50 upper elementary school classrooms (N = 594 fourth-and fifth-grade students). Observational studies suggest that teacherstudent interactions fall into three domains: Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support. Results of multi-level confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a three-factor model fits between-and within-classroom variability in students' reports reasonably well. Multi-level regressions provide some evidence of criterion validity, with student reports at the classroom level related to parallel observations. Both classroom-and student-level student report data were associated with students' reading proficiency and disciplinary referrals. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for future research on student reports of classroom interactions and their practical utility in teacher evaluation and feedback systems.

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