The Attitude of Secondary-School Teachers toward Certain Behavior Problems of Children

Abstract

shaping public and professional opinion that it was thought worthwhile to repeat it, in an attempt to ascertain whether the passage of twenty-five years had produced any measurable change. findings from the more recent study clearly indicate that the elementary-school teachers of today are more nearly in agreement with child-guidance clinic psychiatrists, psychologists, and psychiatric social workers, as to the relative seriousness of certain problems of child behavior, than were the elementary-school teachers of twenty-five years ago. A sampling of persons working in the field of education generally agreed that there is a difference in the training and point of view of elementary-school teachers and teachers. DeYoung sees the secondary-school teachers as the besteducated members of the public school family (2: 224). Gould and Yoakam state: The needs more intensive specialization in his teaching fields than the elementary-school teacher (4: 29). Crow and Crow see the teachers as having been trained to be independent in their areas of subject matter, with little training in the application to their work of the principles of mental hygiene (1: 335). question arises whether a difference might be found in the attitudes of teachers compared with the attitudes of elementary-school teachers and mental hygienists toward the same behavior problems of children.