Identifying Classroom Friendships: Teachers’ Confidence and Agreement With Children

Abstract

Over a century of research on peer relationships has revealed that friendships have a special role in young children's development of social competence and are distinctive from the contributions of adults or near-age relatives (Ladd, 2005). Close relationships with peers provide many opportunities for children to develop positive social behaviors, learn conflict-resolution skills, manage strong emotions, and contribute to their perceptions of self, such as self-concept and self-esteem (Ladd, 2005). Conversely, experiences of peer exclusion or bullying can lead to feelings of loneliness, depression, and anxiety. This may be one reason why the attainment of friendships and social interaction skills have been definitively named as critical outcomes of inclusive early childhood programs. For example, the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) and the National Association for the Education for Young Children (NAEYC) wrote a joint position statement on inclusion in 2009. Likewise, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in 2015 jointly developed a policy statement on early childhood inclusion in 2015. These statements emphasize that early childhood is a critical period for young children to learn skills necessary to beginning and maintaining friendships. The Division for Early Childhood and National Association for the Education for Young Children (2009) joint position statement on inclusion states that the development of friendships is an outcome of high-quality, inclusive classrooms. In their policy statement, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Education (2015) identify friendships with peers as an outcome that should be nurtured within inclusive early childhood environments for every child no matter how mild or severe their disabilities. Likewise, one of the three child outcomes that State Early Intervention and Preschool Special Education programs report to the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) refers to children's social-emotional skills and their ability to develop social relationships with both peers and adults (see www.ectacenter.org). The mastery of social-emotional skills is considered a functional outcome for children with disabilities (Odom, McConnell, & McEvoy, 1992). These skills help children participate and succeed in their everyday communities, including home and school environments, ensuring their equal participation and access. As such, a goal of preschool 763543T ECXXX10.

Friendships and Social Acceptance of Portuguese Children With Disabilities: The Role of Classroom Quality, Individual Skills, and Dosage

“…More passive strategies such as allowing children to choose peers for specific activities or providing free choice opportunities are preferred, likely because teachers believe they should not interfere in children’s relationships (Hollingsworth & Buysse, 2009). Importantly, Meyer and Ostrosky (2018) reported moderate levels of agreement between teachers and young children regarding the identification of children’s friends, with decreased accuracy reported for children with disabilities. Relatedly, in a previous study with this dataset (Ferreira et al, 2017), we found that teachers’ reports on children’s sociometric status were weakly associated with sociometric status based on peer sociometric nominations.…”

“…Fourth, our study does not add to the understanding of the social experiences of children with the most severe disabilities, who were either excluded based on sample selection criteria or could not participate or understand the sociometric tasks. Fifth, although we used a conventional and well-established measure of children’s friendships—one that captures the dyadic and reciprocal nature of children’s relationships and has been used with young children with disabilities (Meyer & Ostrosky, 2016; Yu et al, 2012)—we elicited children’s perspectives on preferred playmates, assuming enjoyment of joint play was a property of children’s friendships, but did not elicit children’s reports of their (best) friends explicitly (Meyer & Ostrosky, 2018).…”

Influence of Teachers’ Grouping Strategies on Children’s Peer Social Experiences in Early Elementary Classrooms

“…Positive experiences such as friendships can provide a context for cooperation and negotiation ( Carter and Nutbrown, 2016 ) and ease children’s adjustment to school life ( Margetts, 2002 ; Corsaro, 2003 ; Peters, 2003 ). Meanwhile, negative peer experiences such as conflict or aggression can hinder children’s self-worth, social competence, and school engagement ( Kamper-DeMarco and Ostrov, 2019 ), leading to loneliness, depression, and school dropout ( Buhs et al, 2006 ; Meyer and Ostrosky, 2018 ).…”

Teachers' Accuracy in Estimating Social Inclusion of Students With and Without Special Educational Needs

“…The research on teachers' accuracy (or diagnostic competence) in estimating the social inclusion of their students is fragmented and limited (Meyer and Ostrosky, 2018). Moreover, the terminology used to describe students' social situations is inconsistent (see Koster et al, 2009).…”

“…Another study by Liau et al (2004) found that teachers rated interpersonal violence in children less accurately when the children showed generally high levels of aggression. Similarly, a study comparing the ability of kindergarten teachers to identify friendships in children with and without disabilities (Meyer and Ostrosky, 2018) showed that the teachers performed less accurately for students with disabilities than for students without disabilities. Another finding also documents a lower rating accuracy of teachers in identifying peer relations of students with SEN (Shilshtein and Margalit, 2019): The correlation of children's self-reports and teachers' estimations of peer acceptance was lower in the group of students with learning disabilities than for those without SEN.…”