Attachment Theory and the Teacher-Student Relationship

A Practical Guide for Teachers, Teacher Educators and School Leaders

Philip Riley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781136929700
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

How teachers form and maintain classroom and staffroom relationships is crucial to the success of their work. A teacher who is able to accurately interpret the underlying relationship processes can learn to proactively, rather than reactively, influence the dynamics of any class. These are skills that can be taught. This invaluable text explains how adult attachment theory offers new ways to examine professional teaching relationships, classroom management and collegial harmony: equally important information for school leaders, teacher mentors and proteges.

Attachment Theory and the Teacher-Student Relationship addresses three significant gaps in the current literature on classroom management:

• the effects of teachers' attachment style on the formation and maintenance of classroom and staffroom relationships
• the importance of attachment processes in scaffolding teachers' and students emotional responses to daily educational tasks
• the degree of influence these factors have on teachers' classroom behaviour, particularly management of student behaviour.

Based on recent developments in adult attachment theory, this book highlights the key aspects of teacher-student relationships that teachers and teacher educators should know. As such, it will be of great interest to educational researchers, teacher educators, students and training teachers.

Part I
Attachment theory

Chapter 1
Attachment theory and the classroom

Overlapping space

Attachment was once a very controversial theory of human development. Applying it to education may ignite a new controversy, as it represents a very different lens through which to view professional relationships in schools and challenges the way teachers have viewed their roles as educators. In this chapter and the next, I present a broad outline of the whole theory before concentrating on the specific components relevant to teachers’ and school leaders’ professional relationships. To date these concepts have remained largely within the domain of psychology. Yet the concepts are equally relevant to educators of all descriptions. By delineating this overlapping space between psychodynamic psychology and education, my aim is to explain the teaching process in new and useful ways to teachers, pre-service teachers, their mentors and leaders.

The reasons for undertaking this approach are threefold. First, by becoming aware of the mechanisms of attachment, teachers will be better informed about the processes of relationship building. This is a crucial aspect of professional practice, not usually included in pre-service teacher education. Second, the importance of the teacher’s role as the secure base for students in the classroom, and the leader’s role as secure base for the teachers in the staffroom becomes clear. These are important because they explain the how and why of teachers’ work. The lack of a secure base predicts aggression in children (Sroufe, 2005) and may also explain why some teachers report becoming aggressive with their students. Third, if the overlapping theoretical space of psychology and teaching is a potential source of new tools for predicting and explaining positive and negative teacher and student behaviour, it deserves to be carefully examined.

The attachment behavioural system

[The attachment behavioural system] comprises a reciprocal set of behaviours shown by care-seeker and caregiver in which they are aware of and seek each other out whenever the care-seeker is in danger due to physical separation, illness or tiredness.

(Holmes, 1993b, p. 218)

Attachment theory is a homeostatic one, designed to regulate emotional distance and felt security in which the caregiver and care seeker endeavour to stay close enough to each other to remain comfortable. Just as the bodily functions of temperature regulation or blood pressure are maintained between appropriate limits for good health, attachment is a system of the regulation of “distance or accessibility … to clearly identified persons … maintained by behavioural instead of physiological means” (Bowlby, 1988a, p. 29). The attachment behavioural system appears to be hierarchical with the list of preferred carers starting with the parents at the top, closely followed by grandparents, siblings, aunts and so on. For each bonded unit, principally the family, the child forms its own unique hierarchy. In evolutionary terms attachment equals survival for the infant who is too helpless to meet his or her own survival needs. This makes attachment such a powerful system of connection between people.

Attachment behaviour

Attachment and attachment behaviour are not the same. An attachment is the bond felt by the care seeker for a particular individual who is thought by the care seeker to be “better able to cope with the world” (Bowlby, 1988a, p. 27). The desire to remain close to the care seeker, particularly in times of stress, persists across time. The various behaviours that the care seeker uses to remain in close proximity to the caregiver are known as attachment behaviour. Attachment behaviour in the care seeker is triggered by actual or imagined separation from the caregiver. It is most obvious when a person is frightened, sick or simply fatigued (Holmes, 1993b, p. 68). At other times the behaviour is less obvious. “Nevertheless for a person to know that an attachment figure is available and responsive gives him a strong and pervasive feeling of security, and so encourages him to value and continue the relationship” (Bowlby, 1988a, p. 27).

The attachment bond

There is no such thing as a single human being, pure and simple, unmixed with other human beings. Each personality is a world in himself, a company of many. That self … is a composite structure … formed out of countless never-ending influences and exchanges between ourselves and other. These other persons are in fact therefore part of ourselves … we are members of one another.

(Riviere, 1955)

For normal development, a baby, lacking the ability to meet its own survival requirements, seeks proximity to a caregiver or is in great danger of injury, starvation or worse. Attachment is mediated by looking, hearing, holding and its goal is felt security, which produces a relaxed state in the infant so that it can get on with the developmental task of exploring the world around it. However, a missing, unresponsive, abusive or neglectful caregiver inhibits curiosity in the infant and can provoke feelings of aggression, vigilance and despair (Ainsworth, 1982; Bowlby, 1975). The baby’s survival is at stake, and it must make a strong enough connection with at least one caregiver to achieve this. Therefore, babies respond powerfully to faces and face-like objects from birth and come to recognise the importance of the primary caregivers through repeated exposure to these very important faces (Knox, 2003). Equally, adults respond to babies’ need for proximity by responding to crying, gurgling, smiling and similar behaviours.

While the care-seeking behaviour appears to be innate, the relationship bond formed between a particular baby and its caregivers is learnt through repeated exposure to each other. It is a sensible survival mechanism for the species as a whole. This affectional bond, according to Bowlby, is the basis upon which the baby forms all other relationships, including the teacher–student relationship. More recent research has questioned this deterministic aspect of the theory, by suggesting that inner working models are not static but subject to change throughout the lifespan as a result of experience (Bartholomew, 1994; Fonagy et al., 1996; Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Gillath et al., in press; Kobak & Hazan, 1991; Masiello, 2000). However, these researchers agree that the primary attachment remains a powerfully robust influence on subsequent relationships. For teachers the fact that attachment is not static is good news, as it offers the opportunity to provide security and hope of a better future to insecurely attached students. This is equally good news for leaders who are able to provide security for followers.

Childhood attachment: the development of the attachment bond

The development of the attachment system starts at birth, with the baby’s intense interest in and responsiveness to the human face, and continues throughout life. It moves through a period of ‘set goal attachment’ (six months–three years) which is described by Bowlby as analogous to the setting of a thermostat: the infant must keep close enough to the caregiver, who is seen as the secure base to return to if exploration goes awry. During this period the infant will express separation protest, described by Bowlby (1975) as a danger signal alerting the caregiver that the distance between them has become too great. It operates somewhat like a heat seeking missile.

By the age of three years, as the child acquires language and the sophistication that comes with it, she begins to form reciprocal relationships in which negotiation, pleading, bribing and charm are added to the repertoire of behaviours used to maintain proximity to the caregiver. It is at this stage that the child’s internal working models are formed. The models or prototypes are used by the child to engage with the world. The model contains three broad dimensions: the first aspect is a self-representation, the second, a physical world representation and the third is an other representation (Knox, 2003). By the age of three years the child is recognisably securely or insecurely attached to her caregiver (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991; Bowlby, 1982). Although there is some augmentation of the internal working model as the child develops, once constructed at approximately three years of age, it becomes the basis for all other relationships formed by the child, including relationships with teachers when she reaches school age. It has also been shown to be relatively stable into adulthood (Bartholomew, 1994; Hazan & Shaver, 1987) and perhaps is the basis of the relationships teachers form with students. Each of these ideas will be developed in more detail below, and the mechanism by which teachers may be vulnerable to separation anxiety from their students will be examined. However, it is first important to understand secure attachment.

Secure attachment

A secure attachment is based on the caregiver responding consistently and predictably to the child’s needs, producing an internal working model of confidence in self and others, allowing her to gradually develop her own independence. The caregiver is able to predict what the child needs and through empathy keeps the child in mind when interacting with her. Thus the caregiver makes the world a safe and secure place to explore, but not perfectly so. While the caregiver does many things for the young child, the task of intuiting when and how to let the child struggle to achieve a desired goal for herself is also very important. By doing this, the caregiver allows the child to learn about her developing self-efficacy in dealing with the physical and social environment. As these experiences are learnt, the child’s explorations away from the caregiver become rewarding also, because they were suited to her abilities and desires. Winnicott (2002) described this process as the caregiver empathically failing the child. In contrast, the child who has to fend for herself too much through lack of forethought or empathy by the caregiver, whose explorations from the carer are unfulfilling, dangerous or worse, soon learns not to venture out and loses curiosity about the environment in which she finds herself. This has serious implications for the child and her teachers when she reaches school age.

Insecure attachments: avoidant, ambivalent

If the child has been in a relationship with a caregiver who has been unpredictable or rejecting the child will develop an insecure attachment style. Insecure attachments lead the child to attempt to minimise her unmet needs for attachment in order not to experience the pain of separation when it occurs. Insecure attachments were originally conceived in two ways: avoidant or ambivalent. A third style, the much rarer disorganised, was added later for children who displayed aspects of both ambivalent and avoidant attachment (Ainsworth, 1989). In the extreme form avoidant and/or ambivalent people are wary and distrustful of others and of their own feelings and intuitions about relationships. They are more likely to become defensive to protect themselves from the pain of not having their genuine attachment needs met. Often this is accomplished by convincing themselves, through cognitive and affective restructuring (Brown, 2002) that they do not have attachment needs (avoidant) or they may become clinging and controlling in intimate relationships (ambivalent). This can lead to some or all of the following in the young child: distant contact with the caregiver even when able to be close; excessively clingy or submissive behaviour; role reversal where the child tries to comfort the caregiver; hyper vigilance; anger and despair (Bowlby, 1975).

Unfortunately, the links between severe forms of insecure attachment patterned in childhood by abusive or neglectful attachment figures predict violence in later life quite routinely (Appleyard et al., 2005; Shulman et al., 1999; Sroufe, 1986, 2005; Yates et al., 2003). This pathological form of separation protest is a perversion of normative aggressive responding by children when faced with separation from their primary attachment figures.

Separations: a structural part of every school day

In an attachment dyad such as the teacher–student dyad many separations occur as a normal function of the schooling system. These separations are beyond the control of both the teacher and the students: timetables, weekends, holidays – just to name a few. Each separation raises the possibility of separation anxiety, and each reunion provides the opportunity for a corrective or confirmatory emotional experience. Children from a secure home base who enter the school system to find a dependable and consistent teacher learn that home/school separations are not permanent, can be tolerated and that the reunion with a consistent attachment object can be a pleasure: something to look forward to. Further, the child learns that a consistent and dependable teacher can be a secure base at school, a home away from home. This strengthens her security and builds both self-efficacy and curiosity away from the home environment. This is the best-case scenario for transition to school.

Insecurely attached children, on the other hand, are much more likely to spend a great deal of time at school, in the initial stages at least, either anxiously awaiting and fearing the reunion with their attachment object, or trying desperately to connect with the teacher as a substitute attachment object for an inconsistent parent and therefore needing constant reassurance from her that all is well. The insecure child is also unconsciously searching for a corrective emotional experience from school through peers and teachers. Some will find that school does satisfy this need. If the child has an avoidant attachment style by the time she reaches school, she is likely to appear independent, perhaps overly so, and may seem to settle quickly into routines. However, over time she may show herself to be overly rigid in adhering to the routines, overly stoic when in need of emotional support, and avoiding of the offers of friendship from peers and support from teachers. Each of these children has less emotional energy that can be directed toward the making of secure affectional bonds with both the teacher and her peers, and a reduced curiosity about the interesting developmental challenges that school affords.

Attachment impacts on motivation to become a teacher

The insecurely attached child tends to seek out a substitute caregiver who can provide a corrective emotional experience through a secure, long-term attachment (Brown, 2002). Such a person may very often be a teacher. If a relationship formed with a teacher afforded the child a corrective emotional experience, then it may also consciously influence a later decision to join the profession: a wish to help others achieve the same successful outcome. However, it is also possible that the corrective emotional experience found at school was incomplete. In this case the child may unconsciously seek to repeat this experience of felt security by remaining in the classroom for as long as possible. The wish to remain in the classroom to assuage attachment needs may ...

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I Attachment theory
• Part II Researching teachers’ attachments
• Part III New directions for practice
• Notes
• References and selected bibliography
• Index