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...hypothetical vignettes describing children exhibiting unsociable, aggressive, and prosocial behaviors. Beliefs assessed included teachers' tolerances of the behaviors, their behavioral attributions, the estimated academic and social costs to the child as result of these behaviors, and teachers' responses to each hypothetical child. Teachers reported unique patterns of beliefs and responses toward each of the different types of children described. Not surprisingly, results indicated that teachers had the harshest beliefs toward the aggressive children. However, teachers also clearly distinguished between hypothetical children who were shy versus unsociable, whereas previous research has confounded these behaviors. Results are discussed in terms of the links between teacher beliefs/responses and child socioemotional adjustment at school.
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Teachers' attitudes and beliefs directly and indirectly impact upon children's developmental outcomes. To begin with, teachers' beliefs influence the decisions they make in the classroom (e.g., Fang, 1996; Vartuli, 1999), their general classroom behavioral style (e.g., Charlesworth, Hart, Burts, & Hernandez, 1991; Muijs & Reynolds, 2002), and their responses to child behaviors and misbehaviors (e.g., Abelson, 1979; Cunningham & Sugawara, 1988). Moreover, teachers' belief systems contribute toward children's acquisition of knowledge, serve to provide children with rules, generate a climate for learning, and directly influence students' behaviors toward peers (Birch & Ladd, 1998; Pianta, Steinberg, & Rollins, 1995).
A better understanding of teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and responses to specific child behaviors provides insight into the establishment of teacher-child relationships and ultimately into the process of children's school adjustment. Positive teacher-child relationships may serve to buffer children from negative adjustment outcomes, whereas stressful teacher-student relationships may hinder children's school adjustment (Birch & Ladd, 1996; Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Pianta & Steinberg, 1992). The goal of this study was to explore kindergarten teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and responses toward hypothetical children who were described as frequently displaying prosocial, aggressive, shy, or unsociable behaviors in the classroom.
Teachers' Beliefs about Children's Classroom Behaviors
Researchers examining teacher beliefs have explored the ideas, preconceptions, and attitudes that teachers possess regarding instruction, the nature of the classroom, child development, and children's behaviors (Chang, 2003; Charlesworth et al., 1991; Martin & Baldwin, 1994). In the present study, we focused on teacher tolerances, attributions, and perceived costs to children who were described as frequently displaying specific classroom behaviors as well as their reported responses to these different types of hypothetical children. These particular constructs were selected for the present study based on the results of previous empirical work (described in the following sections) indicating differences in teachers' beliefs and responses toward at least some of the child behaviors of interest in the present study (i.e., aggression vs. social withdrawal).
Tolerance. One way that teachers' beliefs about individual children can be examined is by exploring their tolerances to different child behaviors. Teacher tolerances refer to how acceptable or allowable different behaviors are in the classroom. Results from previous research have suggested that teachers are generally more tolerant of social immaturity (i.e., social withdrawal, lack of self-confidence, anxiety) than they are of social defiance (i.e., fighting, destructiveness, inattentiveness) (Algozzine, Ysseldyke, Christenson, & Thurlow, 1983; Cunningham & Sugawara, 1988; Safran & Safran, 1984).
Kedar-Voivodas and Tannenbaum (1979) argued that these differences in acceptance may be because acting-out behaviors are inconsistent with the pupil role, whereas socially withdrawn behaviors are closer to what is expected from children in the classroom setting. Moreover, whereas aggressive behaviors might produce a rippling effect--contagiously spreading to other students--social withdrawal is generally seen to have little interference with other children's learning (Goldstein, Arnold, Rosenberg, Stowe, & Ortiz, 2001; Safran & Safran, 1984, 1985).
Causal attributions. One reason teachers might differentially tolerate children who frequently engage in different kinds of behaviors is that they have different beliefs about the underlying causes of these different behaviors. For example, people are more likely to give aid to another individual if they believe the person's behavior to be uncontrollable because they see the individual as not responsible for their misfortunes (Nishikawa & Takagi, 1989; Weiner, 1980).
Teachers' causal attributions toward children's classroom behaviors have received surprisingly little empirical attention. Early work by Brophy and Rohrkemper (1981) suggested that elementary school teachers attributed aggressive behaviors to internal, controllable, and stable causes, whereas although social withdrawn behaviors were also considered stable, they were viewed as less internal and less controllable. However, the age of the children may also be a factor, as parents of younger children tend to attribute child misbehaviors to external causes and positive behaviors to internal causes (e.g., Coplan, Hastings, Lagace-Seguin, & Moulton, 2002). To date, teachers' causal attributions of young children's classroom behaviors have not been explored.
Perceived costs. Another method for exploring teachers' attitudes toward children who exhibit disturbing behaviors is to assess the perceived costs of these behaviors. Problem behaviors may be perceived by teachers to have a variety of potential negative implications for young children. This may include concerns about the impact of these negative behaviors on the social, academic, and physical development of the child displaying these behaviors (Brophy & Rohrkemper, 1981; Safran & Safran, 1985). Results from previous research suggest that teachers believe that socially immature behaviors are more costly than socially defiant behaviors to children who engage in such behaviors (Cunningham & Sugawara, 1989).
Reported responses. Finally, teachers' self-reported intended responses to the hypothetical children frequently engaging in different classroom behaviors with peers were also assessed in the present investigation. Teachers' responses to child classroom behaviors influence whether such behaviors will be subsequently repeated (e.g., Ascione & Sanok, 1982; Chang, 2003; Goldstein et al., 2001). For example, Goldstein and colleagues (2001) found that teachers reinforced aggressive acts just as frequently as they punished the behaviors.
There have only been a few previous studies exploring teachers' specific responses to different types of children's classroom behaviors. For example, Brophy and Rohrkemper (1981) found that teachers self-reported that they would use restrictive management strategies (e.g., punishment and threats) in response to children's aggressive behavior, whereas they would use a combination of restrictive and helping strategies (e.g., rewards and punishments) in response to socially withdrawn behaviors.
Interestingly, the same types of responses may be differentially effective in promoting or preventing the future display of specific behaviors. For example, even publicly attempting to correct the behavior may not reduce antisocial acts in aggressive children because aggressive children tend to feel positively about their social skills ill classes where they receive negative attention from their teachers (Chang, 2003). Similarly, directly responding to prosocial acts may not encourage future similar behaviors, perhaps due to decreased internal motivation to perform such acts (Ascione & Sanok, 1982). However, helping shy children by gradually giving them more attention may help them become less inhibited (Brophy & Rohrkemper, 1981; Cunningham & Sugawara, 1988).
In the present study, we focused on teachers' reported use of direct behavioral intervention, the promotion of social skills, having the child make restitution, monitoring the situation, and reporting the behavior to other authorities. Results from some previous research have suggested that teachers may use these particular teacher responses differentially for aggressive, socially withdrawn, and prosocial children (e.g., Cunningham & Sugawara, 1988; Warden, Christie, Kerr, & Low, 1996).
Child Behaviors in the Classroom
In the current investigation, we explored kindergarten teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and responses toward hypothetical children who were reported to frequently display four types of classroom behaviors: prosocial, aggressive, shy, and unsociable. Surprisingly little is known about teachers' beliefs regarding young children's prosocial behaviors. Moreover, although there has been some previous research related to teachers' attitudes toward aggression, previous studies related to social withdrawal have typically confounded shyness and unsociability (e.g., Rubin, Hymel, & Mills, 1989; Safran & Safran, 1984).
Prosocial behavior. Prosocial behaviors are actions performed voluntarily that benefit another individual. Prosociability is considered relatively stable over time and is related to a number of positive child characteristics, including social competence, assertion, positive self-esteem, higher IQ, and peer acceptance (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998).
As mentioned previously, very little research has actually been conducted regarding teachers' reactions to prosocial children. This may be due to the fact that more attention in the classroom is typically given to more disruptive behaviors (Warden et al., 1996). In fact, sociable children do spend less time with their teachers (Coplan & Prakash, 2003). Not surprisingly, teachers are thought to view prosocial behaviors quite positively (Chang, 2003; Ladd & Price, 1987), although prosocial behaviors are often not remarked upon (e.g., Warden et al., 1996).
Aggression. Overt aggression is characterized by hurting another individual physically by hitting, punching, kicking, slapping, and/or pushing (Coie & Dodge, 1998). Aggression has been shown to be relatively stable from toddlerhood through to adulthood and is associated with a wide range of socioemotional and academic difficulties across the life span, including peer rejection, school failure and dropout, and externalizing problems (e.g., Chang, 2003; Coie & Dodge, 1998).
Not surprisingly, aggressive children also tend to have difficult relationships with their teachers (Birch & Ladd, 1998; Naas & Howse, 2003). Previous research has found that teachers tend to report more severe punishments toward aggressive behaviors as opposed to victims of the aggressive acts (Nesdale & Pickering, 2006). Teachers tend to be angry and punishing toward aggressive children and spend a lot of time disciplining aggressive behaviors in the classroom (e.g., Coie & Dodge, 1988). The most common response cited by teachers to inhibit antisocial acts is verbal intervention, although other common responses include physical intervention (e.g., remove the child from the situation, hold the aggressive child back from the victim),...
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