Relationships with teachers in young people’s voices. A qualitative exploration of teacher connectedness

There is consensus that relationships with teachers are an important element in school connectedness, which has a significant impact in young people’s wellbeing. However, there is a need for further conceptual clarity on the definitions of school and teacher connectedness. In this context, exploring young people’s views on teacher-student relationships is an important step to identify the main aspects of teacher connectedness.
As part of the EU funded Teacher Connectedness Project “Wellbeing among European youth: The contribution of student-teacher relationships in the secondary school population”, we designed a qualitative study including focus groups with young people in England to get a deeper understanding of student-teacher relationships. Afterwards, focus groups were also conducted in Spain to analyse the similarities and differences between these two contexts.
This oral presentation summarizes some of the preliminary results from four groups conducted in England with students aged 11 to 18 years, who came from a variety of local schools. Sessions lasted approximately 50 minutes and the topic guide was designed to cover student-teacher relationships in an exploratory way in which young people’s narratives were prioritized. Sessions were audiorecorded and transcribed verbatim for the analyses.
The study revealed some salient features of relationships with teachers for young people that can be linked to connectedness and disconnectedness experiences at school and in their relationships with specific teachers. The assessment of these aspects could contribute to complement the measure on teacher support currently available in the HBSC questionnaire.