Teacher Influences on Students' Attachment to School

Research has shown that students who like school have higher academic achievement and a lower incidence of disciplinary problems, absenteeism, truancy, and dropping out of school than do those who dislike school. Thus, one way to improve academic outcomes is to increase students' attraction to school. This study focused on the role of teachers in shaping students' feelings about school. The unique role that teachers play relative to students and the kinds of experiences that teachers create for students suggest that teachers may exert a powerful influence on whether students like school. Since attachment to school has been shown to affect students' academic performance, identifying the characteristics of teachers that have a positive effect on students' feelings about school is one way to increase students' academic achievement. The study estimated cross-sectional and longitudinal models of teachers' influences on students' feelings about school on data from 6th-, 8th- and 10th-grade students in public and Catholic schools in Chicago. It found that students who perceive that their teachers care about them, respect them, and praise them are more apt to like school than are those who do not, but that teachers' expectations for students' achievement have a negligible effect on whether students like school.