Commentary: The Foundational Role of Teacher-Student Relationships.

Abstract

Inevitably, the answer to most important social science questions seems to be “it’s complicated and it depends.” Yet such is not the case in assessing the import of teacher–student relationships. Unequivocally, students with more positive teacher–student relationships attain a myriad of more desirable student outcomes than their counterparts with less positive relationships (Roorda, Koomen, Split, & Oort, 2011). The handbook chapters in this section underscore how much teacher–student relationships matter and present new theoretical frameworks to organize this rich empirical knowledge. The next logical evolution for this area of research requires translating this scholarship into usable knowledge for practitioners. Wise collaborations between scholars and practitioners can accelerate this evolution by focusing on three dimensions of teacher–student relationships: how we understand, cultivate, and assess them.