Early adolescents’ relationships with parents and teachers: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Children and adolescents with an insecure attachment to their parents can have difficulties to form relationships to individuals outside of the home both in school and later in life. It is of much importance that these children have opportunities to form secure attachments in other ways. The Swedish school system has a compensatory mission and seeks to allow all children to complete their education regardless their background. Previous research shows that socioeconomic status is important for school achievement, but few studies have addressed the ways in which other aspects of the family effect school achievement. The aim of the study was to investigate if early adolescents experience that they receive social support from their teachers and how teachers experience children with problematic parent-child relationships. Data were retrieved from Longitudinal Research on Development In Adolescence (LoRDIA) to answer the research questions, where questionnaires were distributed to 1,515 early adolescents and their teachers in four Swedish municipalities. The data were analyzed through linear and logistic regressions. The results indicated that early adolescents with problematic parent-child relationships do not experience that they receive social support from their teachers. No significant results were found for teachers’ perceptions of early adolescents with or without secure parent-child relationships. The thesis concludes that more research is needed to investigate ways in which early adolescents with problematic parent-child relationships can be supported by their teachers.

LoRDIA research is financed by:

Swedish Research Council, FORTE, VINNOVA, Formas.

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