Volume 44, Issue 3
(September 2015)

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Volume 44, Issue 3
(September 2015)
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African American Children at Risk of Increasingly Conflicted Teacher–Student Relationships in Elementary School

Jantine L. Spilt

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Jan N. Hughes

Texas A&M University

Please address correspondence regarding this article to Jantine L. Spilt, School Psychology and Child and Adolescent Development, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, Box 3717, Leuven, Belgium; e-mail:

This research was supported by Grant R01 HD39367 to Jan N. Hughes from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Jantine L. Spilt is an assistant professor in the School Psychology and Child and Adolescent Development research division at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Belgium. In her research, she focuses on understanding the impact of social classroom relationships, in particular teacher–student relationships, on children's socioemotional, behavioral, and academic development.

Jan N. Hughes is a professor of education psychology at Texas A&M University. Her current research focuses on the effects of classroom characteristics, social classroom relationships, and grade retention on children's psychosocial and academic development.

Associate Editor: Shannon Suldo

Abstract.

Previous studies have found that different trajectories of conflicted relationships with teachers predicted academic underachievement. However, little is known about what places children at risk of atypical conflict trajectories. This follow-up study examines whether African American ethnicity, IQ, and socioeconomic status (SES) are unique predictors of teacher–student conflict trajectories, taking into account sociobehavioral predictors, including aggression and prosocial behavior. The study included an ethnically diverse sample of 657 academically at-risk children in which four latent growth classes of conflict trajectories (Grades 1–5) predicted underachievement previously. In this follow-up study, six predictors were examined: African American ethnicity, SES, IQ (independent assessment), inhibitory control (performance measure), and aggression and prosocial behavior (peer assessment). The results showed that African American ethnicity, but not IQ and SES, uniquely predicted atypical conflict trajectories while controlling for sociobehavioral predictors. African American children were at risk of increasingly conflicted relationships with elementary school teachers, which has been found to increase the risk of academic underachievement in middle school.

Received: April 24, 2014; Accepted: October 22, 2014;

Copyright 2015 by the National Association of School Psychologists