Preschool structural quality and student–teacher closeness are related to children's adjustment: sibling-informed design

Abstract

This study aims at examining whether children's adjustment, social play behavior and Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) program-liking in universal ECEC are associated with the quality of student–teacher relationships and structural quality features of the classrooms they attend. The sample includes 7,436 5-year-old children (50% girls) and 195 sibling pairs (48% girls) participating in the nationwide Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). Three sets of findings are presented. First, student–teacher closeness is associated with children's adjustment (β = .47; SE = .01), ECEC liking (β = .14; SE = .02) and social play behavior (β = .06; SE = .02) in the between-child analysis. Second, associations of student–teacher closeness with children's adjustment and ECEC liking are evident even after accounting for all confounders shared by siblings in the within-family analysis (sibling fixed effects). Third, structural quality indicators are related to the children's outcomes primarily via quality of student–teacher relationships.