The Co-Creation of Caring Student-Teacher Relationships: Does Teacher Understanding Matter?

Abstract

This study explores the role of high school students’ perceptions of teacher understanding in the development of caring student-teacher relationships. Whereas past research has embedded understanding as a facet of care, this research distinguishes between care and understanding to examine whether and how understanding is necessary for care. Extending Noddings’ (1992) conceptions of caring as virtue and caring as relation to consider understanding as virtue and understanding as relation , the researchers analyzed 33 interviews with high school students discussing 65 student-teacher relationships to consider the nuances within these different types of relationships. The findings confirm that caring as relation is the more desirable form of teacher care and that in most instances of relational caring, students perceive that teachers understand them both as people and learners. However, this is not uniformly the case, and many students perceive agency in co-creating their relationships with teachers by regulating the extent to which they allow teachers to understand them. The researchers recommend greater attention to the development of understanding as virtue within high schools as a middle ground between a complete lack of understanding and extensive relational understanding. This research has implications for teachers and school leaders seeking to foster stronger student-teacher relationships.

‘If They Don’t Care, I Don’t Care’: Millennial and Generation Z Students and the Impact of Faculty Caring

“…In contrast to some prior research (Cooper and Miness, 2014;Tosolt, 2010), caring was not exclusively seen as an individual faculty member's personality trait but also as a practice evidenced through teaching techniques employed. Students identified two specific areas in which caring was seen (or not) in their interactions with faculty -faculty attitude or demeanor and pedagogical practices in class.…”

“…The importance of teachers' caring about students has been well established, although virtually all of the existing research has focused on secondary schools rather than the higher education context (Dallavis, 2014;Meyers, 2009;Noblit, Rogers, and McCadden, 1995;Teven 2007;Teven and Hanson, 2004). In studies of teacher efficacy and student responsiveness, perceived caring consistently emerges as a significant variable shaping student engagement, teacher credibility, and student performance in these settings (Cooper and Miness, 2014;Finn et al, 2009). Frequent interactions with students, assistance with personal and academic challenges, fairness in classroom treatment, listening and encouraging students, smiling and being "warm," and efforts to learn about students' lives have all been associated with seeing a teacher as caring (Cooper and Miness, 2014;Tosolt, 2010).…”

“…In studies of teacher efficacy and student responsiveness, perceived caring consistently emerges as a significant variable shaping student engagement, teacher credibility, and student performance in these settings (Cooper and Miness, 2014;Finn et al, 2009). Frequent interactions with students, assistance with personal and academic challenges, fairness in classroom treatment, listening and encouraging students, smiling and being "warm," and efforts to learn about students' lives have all been associated with seeing a teacher as caring (Cooper and Miness, 2014;Tosolt, 2010).…”

“College Material” Structural Care at a New York City Transfer School

“…Education researchers have established a strong positive correlation between teacher caring and improved student retention and academic success [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. In the literature, and in my own operationalization, teacher caring includes getting to know students personally, providing them socio-emotional support, fostering a sense of belonging, attending to students' physiological needs, and cultivating a sense of mutuality, connection, and desire to understand and help each other [3,4,10,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Home-School Dissonance and Student-Teacher Interaction as Predictors of School Attachment among Urban Middle Level Students

“…These and other teacher characteristics and behaviors (i.e., respect for, interest in, and fair treatment of students, Matsumura et al, 2008; teachers being nonjudgmental, Kennedy, 2011) have been conceptualized in the literature as teacher (affective) support (Anderman, Andrzejewski, & Allen, 2011;Sakiz, Pape, & Hoy, 2012) or teacher care (Perry, Liu, & Pabian, 2010;Tosolt, 2009) and understanding (Cooper & Miness, 2014). For example, den Brok, Fisher, and Koul (2005) conducted a study of teacherstudent interpersonal behavior and students' attitudes toward science and found that teacher interpersonal behavior explains more than 12% of the total variance in students' attitudes toward science.…”