Prosocial behaviour and Student Teacher Relationship in primary school

This study aims to explore the relations among STR, Emotional Intelligence of teachers (EI), and children’s Prosocial Behavior (PB). Participants were 317 7-11 years old children (170 boys) from 20 classes of primary schools, their parents and teachers (one for each class). Teachers filled out the STR Scale (STRS; Pianta, 1999), and the EI Scale (Schutte, et al. 1998). Teacher and parents filled out SDQ subscale of PB (Goodman, 1997). Children filled out the PB scale (Caprara et al, 1998). PB self evaluated by children correlated with parents’ (p=.04) and teachers’ evaluations (p<.001), parents’ and teachers’ perceptions did not correlate between them. EI score for emotion regulation subscale correlated with and STRS Conflict (r=-.41) and Closeness (r=-44) average scores for each class. Teachers were divided into three groups (high, medium and low EI scores) and ANOVAs show that only PB as perceived by parents differentiated in the three groups with lower scores of PB in the group with higher levels of EI (p<001). Regression Analyses show that PB as perceived by teachers and self evaluated by children were predicted by Dependence (β=425; β =268; p<.001) and Conflict (β =-238; β =-173; p<.05) of STR; PB as perceived by parents was not significantly predicted by STR. These results stimulate reflections about different perceptions of children’s PB, and highlight the role of STR in the PB development. The role of teachers’ EI should be better understood: less prosocial children (as perceived by parents) seem to have teachers with lower level of EI and higher EI scores correspond to lower scores in STRS, maybe because more sensitive teachers are more critical about their relation with pupils.