Men in Child Care
Interactions and Relations of Male and Female Caregivers with Boys and Girls in Child Care
Masterscriptie Orthopedagogiek Pedagogische en Onderwijskundige Wetenschappen Universiteit van Amsterdam S. Blokhuis Studentnummer 5803527 Begeleiding: dr. C. Colonnesi, Prof. dr. R.G. Fukkink Amsterdam, 19 maart 2014
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Table of content
Abstract 3
Introduction 4
Attachment: Sensitivity and Exploration 4
Affective Relations 7
Current Study 10
Method 12
Participants 12
Design of the study 13
Observation of caregivers-child interactions. 14
Teacher-Student-Relationship-Scale. 20 Data Screening 21 Statistical Analyses 22 Results 23 Observation Scale 23 Student-Teacher-Relationship-Scale 26
Associations between observed caregiver behavior and the STRS 28
Discussion 29
Observed Sensitive and Challenging Caregiver Behavior 30
Self-reported Quality of Caregiver-Child Relationships 33
Associations of Observed Caregiver Behavior and Self-Reported Quality of Relations 35
Limitations of the study 37
Conclusion 37
3 Abstract
The role of male professional caregivers in child care facilities and their unique contribution to the development of children is still unclear. In this study, caregivers’ gender differences in daily interactions and long term caregiver-child relationships were investigated from an extended attachment perspective. Forty professional caregivers (19 male and 21 female) working as colleagues were observed in interaction with a three-year-old boy and girl from their child care group. Gender differences in caregivers’ interaction were explored in terms of sensitive-responsive and challenging, exploration-stimulating behavior. Also, caregivers reported the quality of their affective relations with these children by completing the Student-Teacher-Relationship Scale (Pianta, 2001). Results yielded no gender differences in caregivers’ interactive behavior. Female caregivers reported more positive relations with children than their male colleagues. They experienced less dependency and conflict in their relations than male caregivers. A marginally significant effect suggests that female caregivers experienced more closeness in their relations with girls than with boys as compared to their male colleagues. These findings are in line with gender socialization theory (Basow, 2004). More structured guidance of female caregivers towards children was related to higher reported levels of conflict. This was not found for male caregivers, suggesting that associations between daily interactions and affective relationships are dependent on gender. Unlike expected, caregiver sensitivity was not related to reported relationship quality. The findings generate interesting questions for further discussion and research on the role of male caregivers in child care.
4 Introduction
Surrounded by women in child care and early education settings in the first years of their lives, young children grow up in women’s world. With approximately 96% of the caregivers in child care in the
Netherlands being female (FCB, 2012) and an average of 97% of the teachers in pre-primary education in countries all over the world (OECD, 2012) the workforce in child care settings is predominantly female. These child care settings are important rearing environments for many young children: in the Netherlands, about forty percent of the children under the age of four attend child day care centres (Visser & Huynen, 2014), while this number is even higher in the United States (61%, U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). Much research has been done investigating the consequences of attending child care arrangements on the development and well-being of children. Until recently, this literature exists of studies that include female caregivers, but not male caregivers.Consequently, not much is known about the influence of male caregivers on the development of children in child care, making it unclear what consequences the scarcity of men in child care has for young children. A first step in investigating this is to explore to what extent interactions and relations of male caregivers with children are different from those of female caregivers. Therefore, this study aims to explore caregiver gender effects in child care arrangements from an extended attachment perspective. The main focus of this study is to compare qualities of interactions and relations of male versus female caregivers with boys and girls.
Attachment: Sensitivity and Exploration
Young children form attachment relations with their parents or primary caregivers, seeking proximity to and reassurance from them in times of distress (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970). Children become attached to caregivers who are consistently sensitive and responsive in social interactions with them, that is, who respond promptly and appropriately to their signals and who are warm and accessible for them. In fact, caregiver sensitivity is seen as one of the most important precursors of attachment security (Belsky & Fearon, 2008). If children feel safe in their attachment relationship, this bond does not only provide protection, but children can use their caregivers as a secure base from which to explore their surroundings.
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While early attachment research mainly focused on mothers, the unique role of fathers in parenting and their distinct attachment relationships with children has come under attention in recent years. Whereas mothers generally involve in care giving, fathers prefer to play with their children. Observational research yields insight in how fathers have different interactions with children than mothers: fathers engage in more physical play, stimulate risk taking in children, play more unconventional games and tend to destabilize children emotionally and cognitively through teasing (Paquette, 2004, Bögels & Perotti, 2011). Also, fathers are observed to be somewhat less responsive to infants than mothers (Kochanska & Askan, 2004). It seems that mothers’ sensitive interaction with children is more focused on proximity and caring, while interaction of fathers is rather challenging and oriented towards exploration. In terms of attachment: whereas secure attachment to mothers provides comfort and relaxation, fathers are thought to provide security in exciting situations through sensitive and challenging support (Grossmann, Grossmann, Kindler, & Zimmermann, 2008). Paquette (2004) theorized the father-child attachment as an activating relationship that fosters the affectional bond children need to develop a sense of security and self-confidence through encouraging children to explore the physical and social world while setting proper limits to their safety. As such, fathers are thought to play an important role in the development of children’s autonomy and their openness to the outside world (Bögels & Perotti, 2011, Paquette, 2004). The relevance of this theory is pointed out by a study indicating that the father-child activating relationship predicts children’s socio-emotional development: children who are optimally activated by their fathers have less internalizing problems, meaning that they are less depressed, anxious, isolated and dependent(Dumont & Paquette, 2013). As boys tend to be more active, aggressive and impulsive than girls, it is thought that an activating relationship is particularly important for them, to help them regulate their high activity level (Paquette, 2004). Two recent studies confirm this idea that boys are activated more than girls (Gaumon & Paquette 2012, Paquette & Bigras, 2010).
Extended attachment perspective.
Children can form close relationships not only with their parents, but also with familiar non-parental care providers, such as professional caregivers in child care. These close relationships are similar to attachment bonds: children seek proximity and reassurance from caregivers when they are
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distressed (e.g. Howes & Spieker, 2008, Ahnert, Pinquart & Lamb, 2006, van IJzendoorn, Sagi, & Lambermon, 1992). Just as in parent-child attachments, security of such caregiver-child relations depends largely on the sensitive responsiveness of caregivers towards children (Ahnert et al., 2006). Thus, with this research, attachment theory has been extended to non-parental caregivers. From this extended attachment perspective, theory about the role of fathers (Paquette, 2004) provides a starting point for exploring characteristics of interactions and relations of male caregivers with children in child care. It could be argued that male caregivers working in child care are different from fathers, because they have been trained in providing sensitive and responsive care to children during their professional education. Yet, to the extent that sensitive and challenging interaction styles are gender stereotyped, similar differences in the interactions of male versus female caregivers are expected here.
The first empirical studies examining gender effects in the interactions of professional caregivers yield rather inconclusive results. Two studies have been conducted in early childhood education centres in Germany, both observing professional behavior of male and female caregivers towards children three to six years of age (Brandes, Andrä, Röseler, & Schneider-Andrich, 2012, Hubler & Traxl, 2012). In the tandem study of Brandes et al. (2012), caregivers were observed in interaction with one child, during a quasi-experimental play situation. The quality of professional interaction of male and female caregivers did not seem to differ on measures of observed empathy, challenge, cooperation and quality of dialogical interaction. Child gender effect seemed to be greater than the influence of the gender of caregivers, with caregivers being more functional object-oriented with boys and personal relationship-oriented with girls in the content of communication and type of activity. Considering these differences, men orientated their behavior towards the gender of a child, whereas women tended to treat boys and girls more equally. Overall, the results of this observational study do not confirm the assumption that women interact in a more empathic, attachment-oriented way and men interact in a challenging, exploration-oriented way.
Contrary, Huber and Traxl (2012) found differences in the interactions of male and female caregivers. Instead of using a quasi-experimental play situation to rate the quality of caregivers’ interactions with children, they observed caregivers during their natural, daily interactions with children. Using the Caregiver Interaction Scale (Arnett, 1989) to rate these observations, Huber and Traxl found large individual differences for both male and female caregivers. On average, male caregivers interacted
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more positive and less punitive towards children than their female colleagues. These differences were most pronounced in measures of permissiveness, with men being more permissive than women (i.e. less control and punishment). Additionally, a self-constructed rating scale of group dynamics showed that male caregivers provoked more mobility in group interactions and had a tendency to create more transitional space than females, while no differences were found in structuring the group activity. These results suggest that male caregivers interact differently with children than female caregivers. Clearly, more research is needed to determine differences in the interactions of male and female caregivers with children in child care. To this end, sensitive and challenging behavior of male and female caregivers towards boys and girls will be examined in this study.
Affective Relations
While observation of caregiver behavior provides insight into daily interactions between caregivers and children, examining the quality of their affective relationships indicate how these interactions build up to long-term relational patterns. Affective relationships between caregivers or teachers and children can be described as extended attachment relationships and they are often studied through assessing caregivers’ perceptions of the quality of their relationship with children (Koomen,
Verschueren, & Pianta, 2007). The Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS; Pianta, 2001) is a widely used self-report instrument to assess the quality of teacher-student relations on attachment based dimensions of closeness, conflict and dependency. Using the STRS, caregivers rate their perception on the relationship with an individual child, as well as the interactive behavior of children on these three dimensions. A close relation with low levels of conflict and dependency indicates that a child can effectively use his or her teacher as source of safety and support.
Teachers and caregivers using this scale consistently report having more positive relations with girls than with boys, characterized by higher levels of closeness and less conflict (Silver, Measelle, Armstrong, & Essex, 2005, Stipek & Miles, 2008, Jerome, Hamre, & Pianta, 2008, Ewing & Taylor, 2009). However, as in attachment research, these findings are primarily based on reports of female teachers and caregivers. It could be that boys have less positive relations with caregivers than girls because they have to identify with caregivers from the opposite gender. The social learning perspective
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states that boys and girls can more easily identify and build high quality relations with same-gender caregivers (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Adding to this, the gender scheme theory (Martin, Ruble, & Szkrybalo, 2002) states that children construct gender categories that guide their behavior and thinking. Based on these gender categories, children are thought to identify with same-gender caregivers through labelling them as ‘gender appropriate’. According to this theory, it could be that girls in child care label
their female caregivers as gender appropriate and thus seek closer relationships with them then do boys, who label their female caregivers as gender inappropriate. In the same way it might be easier for female caregivers in child care to identify with girls than with the active, explorative play of boys and their way of expressing problems. These theoretical views predict that boys will have better interpersonal relationships with male caregivers than with female caregivers.
Gender differences in caregiver-child relations.
Few studies have investigated the effect of caregiver gender on the quality of affective relations with children.Findings from one of the first studies to explore this in child care are partly in line with the gender scheme theory (Huber & Traxl, 2012). In the study of Huber and Traxl, male and female caregivers’ perception of their relationships with three-year-old boys and girls was assessed using the
Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (Pianta, 2001). Caregivers of both genders reported to have better overall quality relationships with girls than with boys, but male caregivers reported closer relationships with boys than female caregivers did. Additional observations of attachment behavior of children, using the Attachment Q-Sort (Waters & Deane, 1985), indicated that boys more often showed contact behavior towards male caregivers than to female staff. This difference was especially visible on measures of affective sharing and enjoying physical contact. Also, 45% of female childcare workers reported that boys ‘escape’ out of their operating range, whereas no male worker reported the same. Taken together,
results of this study suggest that boys have closer relationships with male caregivers than with female caregivers, but ratings of overall relationship quality do not confirm that boys and girls have better interpersonal relationships with same-gender caregivers. It should be noted that these results are based on a very small sample size, consisting of five male and five female caregivers.
No other studies are known that examine gender effects on quality of relations in child care. Notably, studies investigating this effect in a somewhat older population did not confirm the gender
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scheme based predictions (Ewing, 2009, Spilt, Koomen & Jak, 2012). In the study of Ewing (2009) teachers working in primary schools in the United States rated their relationships with six- to eleven-year-old students. Both male and female teachers rated boys higher in conflict than girls. Female teachers reported higher levels of closeness with girls than with boys, but men did not report higher levels of closeness in their relation with boys. Controlling for measurement invariance, Spilt et al. (2012) recently found similar outcomes in a large Dutch sample of primary school teachers and their students. Sufficient measurement invariance was found, suggesting that relationship constructs were invariant across caregiver gender, in other words: the same constructs were measured for boys and girls when asking female and male teachers. Results showed that female teachers reported better relationships with boys and girls than male teachers, that is, they reported overall more closeness, less conflict and less dependency. Female, but not male teachers rated their relationships with girls as more close than their relationships with boys, whereas both male and female teachers experienced higher levels of conflict with boys than with girls.
These studies in primary schools seem to suggest that only girls seek closer relationships with their same-gender caregivers.This finding directs to an alternative explanation for the relational patterns found among caregivers and children: it could be that they reflect gender role socialization, a process in which gender typical behaviors and attitudes of boys and girls are reinforced through differential treatment by parents, teachers and caregivers (Basow, 2004, Fagot, Hagan, Leinbach, & Kronsbert, 1985). Through reinforcing gender stereotypical behavior, girls and women might be socialized more towards forming close interpersonal relationships. Boys and men, on the other hand, might be socialized to act autonomous and independent, leading to more conflict and less closeness in relations. So, while gender scheme theory predicts optimal relationship quality for boys and girls with same-gender caregivers, socialization theory suggests that this holds true for girls and female caregivers and not for boys and male caregivers. Looking at the small amount of studies that have been done, there seems to be somewhat more empirical support for the gender role socialization theory than for gender scheme or social learning theories. Yet, studies referring to gender role socialization have been conducted in primary schools, so it is unknown to what extent socialization has already led to clear gender-typed relational patterns in boys and girls of preschool age.
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Taken together, literature on the influence of male caregivers on young children in child care arrangements is still scarce and rather inconclusive. Given that workforce in child care settings is predominantly female, it is not surprising that not much research has been done exploring the characteristics and value of male workers in child care arrangements. Nevertheless, professionals have expressed their concerns about the effects of the so called feminisationin early child care and education facilities on the development of children, and of boys in particular (Tavecchio, 2007). From the social learning perspective, men are role models exemplifying masculine activities, attitudes and patterns of thought and behavior (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). The absence of men in early child care and education facilities means that young boys and girls miss chances to learn from a male role model. Especially for boys, the concern is that they lack the opportunity to develop their (male) identity through modelling. This has led to the assumption that children, boys in particular, would benefit from interactions and relations with male caregivers and teachers. Until now, hardly any research has been done investigating the combined gender effects of caregivers and children to confirm this assumption.
Current Study
The current study aims to examine the combined effects of caregiver and child gender on qualities of relations and interactions with boys and girls from an extended attachment perspective. Male and female caregivers’ sensitive and challenging behavior is observed while caregivers play a game with a three-year-old boy and girl. Additionally, caregivers will be asked to rate their affective relationship with those children on dimensions of closeness, conflict and dependency, using a Dutch translated version of the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS; Koomen, Verschueren, & Pianta, 2007).
Focussing on three-year-old children in child care arrangements, the current study aims to extend previous research on affective caregiver-child relations to a younger, preschool age group. Further, the design of this study enables comparing how male and female caregivers evaluate a specific child’s behavior in an affective relationship. Child care arrangements provide the unique opportunity to compare two caregivers who, as colleagues, work with the same group of children. By comparing ratings of male and female colleague-caregivers in relation to the same boy and girl, possible effects of child characteristics can be controlled for. Teacher ratings of their relationship with a specific child may in
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part reflect child characteristics, such as temperament. Conflict in a relation, for example, might reflect higher levels of externalizing behavior (Silver, Maeselle, Armstrong, & Essex, 2005) or anger (Justice, Cottone, Mashburn, & Rimm-Kaufman, 2008), two attributes that are seen more often in boys than in girls. Another influence on caregiver interactive behavior is that of the pedagogical concept of the child care centre against the background of which the caregivers work. That is, child care centres can have varying ideas or guidelines of how caregivers should interact with children and this can affect caregiver behavior. The design of this study makes it possible to control for this effect, by comparing male-female pairs of caregivers from the same child care centre with each other.
To investigate differences between male and female professional caregivers in child care, three main research goals have been formulated. The first goal was to examine differences in sensitive and challenging behavior of male and female caregivers towards boys and girls. Extending research on fathers’ distinct attachment relation (Paquette, 2004, Bögels & Perotti, 2011) it is expected that male
caregivers provide more challenging behavior towards children than female caregivers, while women are, in general, more sensitive. In line with earlier findings (Gaumon & Paquette 2012, Paquette & Bigras, 2010), both male and female caregivers are expected to be more challenging towards boys than towards girls. This difference in caregivers’ interaction with boys versus girls is expected to be greater in male caregivers than in female caregivers, consistent with findings from earlier work on gender differences in child care (Brandes et al., 2012).
The second goal was to investigate gender effects on the self-reported quality of affective relations of caregivers with children. Guided by findings from previous studies (Ewing, 2009, Spilt, et al., 2012), a gender role socialization perspective is adopted here. Accordingly, it is hypothesized that female caregivers report more positive relations with children, girls in particular, than male caregivers. That is, it is expected that female caregivers report a better overall quality, higher levels of closeness and less conflict in their relations with children than male caregivers. Female caregivers are expected to report more closeness and higher overall relationship quality in their relationships with girls than with boys, while such a difference is not expected for male caregivers. Also, it is expected that both male and female caregivers experience more conflict in their relation with boys as compared to girls. Compared to closeness and conflict subscales, the dependency subscale of the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale
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(Pianta, 2001) has shown lower reliability in terms of internal consistency, leading researchers to drop the subscale or to combine it with conflict (Solheim Berg-Nielsen & Wichstrøm, 2012). Consequently, until now, no evident gender effects are known regarding dependency. Based on recent findings of Spilt, et al. (2012), it is expected here that male caregivers experience more dependency in their relationships with children than female caregivers.
The third goal of this study is to explore the association between the quality of caregivers’ observed interactional behaviors and their perception of their affective relationships with children. Because sensitivity is an important precursor of safe attachment relations (Belsky & Fearon, 2008), it is hypothesized that sensitive behavior of the caregiver is associated with higher quality of the caregiver-child relation. Thus, it is expected that higher levels of observed sensitive behavior are associated with relationships characterized by high levels of closeness and low levels of conflict and dependency. Since research on challenging caregiver behavior in relationships is still in its infancy, associations between caregivers’ observed challenging behavior and caregiver-child relationships are investigated on
exploratory basis.
Method
Participants
Participants were 47 caregivers working at registered child care centers throughout the Netherlands. The study was part of a larger longitudinal study of the University of Amsterdam, for which participants were recruited through either a parent company of many child care organisations throughout the Netherlands (ESTRO), the website associated with the research project Men in Childcare1, or an e-mail sent out to Dutch child-care organisations with three or more branches. The participants were employed as permanent pedagogical staff at a child care centre; caregivers following an internship were excluded from the study. Male caregivers received an informed consent letter prior to participation, providing information on the goal and procedures of this study, as well as anonymity of their participation. Then they were contacted by phone to retrieve permission for participating in the study. In consultation with their location manager, participating men asked one of their female
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colleagues to collaborate in the study. These female caregivers also received the informed consent letter. This way, a total number of 47 caregivers agreed to participate in the study. No reward was given for participation. In two cases, no female colleague agreed to participate, and the male caregiver was excluded from the study. Five caregivers were excluded because of practical restrictions on their side. The final sample resulted in forty professional caregivers, 19 male and 21 female, together with 52 children, 27 boys and 25 girls, from their child care groups. Participating caregivers were employed in one of three different types of day care: full-time day care groups with children 0-4 years of age (n = 16), full-time day care with children aged 2-4 years old (n = 18), or pre-school play groups with half day programs for children aged 2 to 4 (n = 6). The participants were observed at the child care centre and reported about their relation with two children from their group.
Participating children were on average 36 months old (range 34 to 38 months). As part of the longitudinal study, one boy and one girl from each day care group had been selected as participants (n = 40, 20 boys). The main selection criterion was age: within each group, the children whose age was closest to 36 months were selected. An active consent form was sent to the parents of all participating children to inform them about the study and ask permission for videotaping their children. When a child could not participate, another child from the group matching in age and gender was selected. In the current study, twelve children were recruited additionally to the 40 target children, resulting in the final sample of 52 children. These twelve children participated only in the observation sessions, as stand in for children that were absent during one or more planned observations.
Design of the study
A semi-structured observation was used in this study to explore interactions of male and female caregivers with children in child care. Two months to a year after the observation, participants were asked to complete the online version of the Student-Teacher-Relationship-Scale (STRS; Koomen et al., 2007). This questionnaire was used to assess caregivers’ perceptions of their affective relationship with the two selected children from their group.
14 Observation of caregivers-child interactions.
Each caregiver was visited at the child care center for an observation of their interactive behavior with a boy and a girl from their group. Children were observed twice: once with their female caregiver and once with their male caregiver, as is schematically depicted in Figure 1.
For the observation, caregivers were videotaped during a game session with a three-year-old boy and girl at the child care centre at which they work. Two fine motor skills games were selected for these sessions: animal-upon-animal (MB®) and buckaroo (HABA®). The game animal-upon-animal consists of small wooden animal figures that can be built into a tower. In the game buckaroo, small objects can be hung on the back of a horse that jumps when too much pressure is put on its saddle. Figure 2 depicts the play materials that belong to both games. The difficulty level of these games was thought to provide opportunities for caregivers to support and challenge children.
Male and female colleagues each played a different game, so that children played both games once. Games were randomly assigned, counterbalancing game type across caregiver gender (i.e.: in total, 10 men and 9 women played ‘buckaroo’ and the other 9 men and 8 women played ‘animal-upon-animal’). Short instructions for the games were provided to the caregiver before starting the session,
but it was emphasized that caregivers were free to use the game by their own insight. At least ten minutes of interaction was videotaped.
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Figure 2. A Picture of the Gaming Pieces for the Games Animal Upon Animal (MB®, Left) and Buckaroo (HABA®, Right).
Coding of the observation.
Videotaped interactions of male and female caregivers with children were analysed with the computer program The Observer XT 11.5 (Noldus Information Technology, Netherlands). The first eight minutes of each interaction were coded using a categorical observation scale. This scale was developed to measure professional caregivers’ behavior on two dimensions: sensitivity and
challenging interaction. Behaviors coded in the sensitivity dimension indicate the extent to which caregivers respond adequately to children. The dimension of challenging interaction includes behaviors that relate to the way caregivers facilitate children’s independent exploration of the game. Behaviors coded on this dimension relate to the way that caregivers guide, stimulate and teach children during the game. The coding scheme with a description of all coded behaviors is shown in Table 1. Behaviors were scored as state events (i.e.: event with a start time and an end time). The frequencies (number of occurrences) of the coded behaviors were used in the analyses. Both verbal and non-verbal behaviors were scored.
Table 1
Description of Observed Caregiver Behavior
Caregiver behavior Description
Responsiveness Caregiver responds to a child, e.g. reacts to questions, confirms what a child is doing or saying
Comfort Caregiver comforts a child, responds to emotions of child
Praise Caregiver gives positive feedback, such as compliments, applause or thumbs-up Touching-affective Caregiver touches child in an affective way, e.g. cuddling, patting
Give space Caregiver provides space for child initiatives, e.g. accepts idea of child, lets child choose how to play the game
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Construction of behavior categories.
After coding the videotaped interactions, the structure of the observation scale was explored with the aim of creating coherent and meaningful behavior categories. Overall, both male and female caregivers showed high rates of responsive behavior, an indicator of sensitivity. Negative behaviors were hardly observed in the sensitivity dimension: non-affective touching was not observed at all and critique was observed once. Therefore, these two variables were excluded from analyses. The scores for ignore were added to the score for non-responsiveness, because frequencies for both variables were low and ignore was seen as extreme form of non-responsiveness. Mean frequency scores and standard deviations of the included observed behaviors are reported in Table 2. To explore the underlying structure of the observation scale and associations between the variables, Kendall’s tau
correlations were calculated and an explorative factor analysis was done. The correlations are shown in Table 3. Non-parametric Kendall’s tau correlations were used because not all separate behaviors were normally distributed and the sample size was small (Field, 2005).The rotated component matrix and the resulting observation categories are shown in Table 4.
Table 1 Continued
Non-responsiveness Caregiver does not react to a clear signals of a child, such as a child calling the caregivers name or a child asking the caregiver a question
Ignore Caregiver does not respond to two or more consecutive clear signals of a child, such as child calling caregivers name or asking a question
Critique Caregiver gives negative feedback, e.g. saying ‘you did it wrong’ or explicit sighing
Touching-aversive Caregiver touches child in aversive way, such as hitting or pulling
Encourage Caregiver supports child to fulfill action independently, e.g. saying ‘you can do it’, ‘try again’ Stimulate actions Caregiver stimulates child to explore game, e.g. setting a higher aim, suggest
playing game in a different way, challenge children to perform a difficult action.
Instruct Caregiver informs children about rules of the gameor demonstrates game Set limit Caregiver sets limits for a child or restricts a child, e.g. saying ‘don’t do that’ or
‘wait’, give reprimands.
Intrusiveness Caregiver discourages child through telling them that they cannot fulfill task, e.g. ‘this game is too difficult’, or intrusive helping
Stimulate thinking Caregiver stimulates thinking by prompting or asking activating questions (‘think again’, ‘is it really a shoe?’)
Inform Caregiver provides children general knowledge (e.g. ‘a mole lives underground’) or corrects what a child says
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Means and Standard Deviations for Observed Caregiver Behaviors
Male caregivers (n = 17) Female caregivers (n = 16) Mean (n = 33) Caregiver behavior M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) Responsiveness 50.00 (15.44) 52.38 (13.17) 51.15 (14.21) Comfort 0.53 (0.87) 0.88 (1.36) 0.70 (1.13) Praise 6.88 (3.72) 8.00 (5.69) 7.42 (4.74) Affective touching 0.53 (1.28) 0.31 (0 .79) 0.42 (1.06) Give space 5.47 (3.48) 6.63 (9.05) 6.03 (6.69) Non-responsiveness 1.82 (1.67) 1.56 (1.86) 1.70 (1.74) Encourage 8.82 (5.11) 8.44 (5.27) 8.64 (5.11) Stimulate action 2.00 (1.97) 2.25 (2.70) 2.12 (2.32) Instruct 2.59 (2.03) 3.88 (2.36) 3.21 (2.26) Set limits 4.65 (4.05) 3.69 (4.60) 4.18 (4.28) Intrusiveness 0.12 (0 .33) 0.25 (0.58) 0.18 (0.47) Stimulate thinking 3.24 (3.91) 4.31 (3.55) 3.76 (3.73) Inform 2.47 (2.15) 3.81 (2.51) 3.12 (2.40)
Note. Mean score reflects the number of times the behavior is observed within the observation time frame of eight
minutes.
Table 3
Kendall’s Tau Correlations for Observed Caregiver Behavior
Caregiver Behavior 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1.Responsiveness – .01 -.09 .04 .18 -.11 -.08 .15 -.05 .14 .06 .17 .16 2.Comfort – -.01 .38* .17 -.04 -.03 .09 .05 -.14 -.29 -.22 -.04 3.Praise – .09 -.09 .30* .08 .04 -.06 -.07 -.09 -.13 .12 4.Affective touching – -.08 .08 .00 -.09 -.09 -.08 -.21 -.18 .19 5.Give space – -.12 .02 -.12 -.12 .09 .08 -.14 -.24 6.Non-responsiveness – .19 -.01 .09 .11 .10 -.02 .16 7.Encourage – -.27* .23 .34** -.12 -.08 -.01 8.Stimulate action – -.12 -.37** -.08 .13 .05 9.Instruct – .25 .23 -.12 .04 10.Set limit – .16 -.12 .01 11.Intrusiveness – -.04 .12 12.Stimulate thinking – .27* 13.Inform – Note. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01 (2 tailed)
18 Table 4
Behavior Categories and Factor Loadings for Exploratory Factor Analysis with Varimax Rotation of Observed Caregiver Behavior
Behavior Category Caregiver Behavior
Component 1 2 3 Sensitive-responsiveness Responsiveness -.11 .31 -.53 Non-responsiveness1 .39 .22 .51 Give space .14 -.47 -.68 Praise Praise -.02 -.04 .63
Structured Guidance Encourage .67 -.01 .30
Stimulate action1 -.72 .15 .13
Instruct .56 .09 .08
Set limit .73 .11 -.07
Knowledge-oriented teaching Inform -.02 .57 .13
Stimulate thinking -.32 .69 -.17
Intrusiveness .31 .49 -.12
Comfort1 -.12 -.68 -.23
Affective touching1 -.15 -.44 .26
Note. The highest factor loadings per behavior are in boldface. 1 These behaviors are negative indicators of the behavior category.
Based on these correlations, exploratory factor analysis and literature on sensitivity (e.g., Belsky & Fearon, 2008, Paquette, 2004; Waters & Deane, 1985), three behavior categories were constructed. These categories are sensitive-responsiveness, structured guidance, and knowledge-oriented teaching. Unexpectedly, the variable praise was correlated positively to non-responsiveness. To maintain coherence within the category sensitive-responsiveness, praise was treated as separate behavior category on exploratory basis. The behavior categories are described next.
Sensitive responsiveness.
The category sensitive responsiveness reflects the extent to which caregivers respond adequately to children. The behaviors responsiveness and giving space are positive indicators of sensitive responsiveness. Non-responsiveness is a negative indicator of this category. The total score for sensitive responsiveness was calculated as follows: (responsiveness + giving space) – non-responsiveness. A higher score in this category indicates a higher level of sensitive responsiveness
Structured guidance.
The category structured guidance is defined here as activating children to play the game. The category reflects how much caregivers structure the game and encourage children to play. The
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behaviors instruction, encourage and set limits are positive indicators of structured guidance. The behavior stimulate action is a negative indicator of structured guidance, because instead of guiding children through the game, stimulating action is described here as challenging children to do something new or change the way they play the game. The score for structured guidance was calculated as follows: (instruction + encourage + set limits) – stimulate action. A higher score on the category structured guidance indicates less challenging interaction from the caregiver.
Knowledge-oriented teaching.
The category knowledge-oriented teaching is defined here as caregiver behavior that is focused on informing or correcting children. The category reflects a controlling or dominant attitude of the caregiver, a focus on correctness and less attention for children’s emotional well-being. The
behaviors inform, stimulate thinking and intrusiveness are positive indicators of this category, while comfort and affective touching are negative indicators. The score for knowledge-oriented teaching was computed as follows: (inform + stimulate thinking + intrusiveness) – (comfort + affective touching). This behavior category was thought to be less stimulating for children’s exploration, since caregivers take more control and leave less opportunity for children to discover. Thus, higher score on the category knowledge-oriented teaching indicates less challenging interaction from the caregiver.
Praise.
The behavior category praise is defined as positive feedback from a caregiver, such as compliments, applause or thumbs up. A higher score for this category indicates a higher frequency of praising behavior from a caregiver. Praise was included in the analyses on exploratory basis.
Reliability.
Four observers independently coded the videos after training with 10 observations and consultation with a trained coder. To estimate the reliability of individual coders’ ratings, 20% of the observations (n = 7) were coded by two observers. Before calculating the reliability, one consultation session was held per video to detect and repair disagreements between the two observers due to procedural miscoding (e.g. wrong cut-off point) or pronounced misconceptions of the described
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behavior specifications. Next, the inter-rater reliability was calculated using Cohen’s kappa, commonly used for assessing inter-rater reliability for categorical variables (Bakeman & Deckner, 2005). Inter-rater reliability rates of the observation scale were adequate, namely κ = .83 for the sensitivity dimension, and for the challenging interaction dimension it was κ = .81. All cases that were scored by two observers were then discussed until consensus could be reached.
Teacher-Student-Relationship-Scale.
An authorized Dutch translated, slightly adapted internet-version of the Student-Teacher-Relation Scale (STRS; Koomen et al., 2007) was used to measure caregivers’ perceptions of their affective relationship with individual children. This self-report questionnaire was originally developed in the United States, based on the attachment theory and the Attachment Q-Sort (Waters & Deane, 1985, Pianta, 2001). It assesses three dimensions of the relationship with 28 items: closeness (11 items), conflict (11 items) and dependency (6 items). Closeness refers to the degree to which a teacher experiences affection, openness and warmth in the relation with a particular child. This scale reflects a positive dimension of the relation and an example of an item is: ‘I share an affectionate, warm relationship with this child’. The conflict and dependency scales represent negative dimensions of a
relationship. Conflict reflects the level of discord within teacher-child interactions (e.g. ‘this child easily becomes angry with me’) and dependency reflects teachers’ perception of possessive, clingy behavior of a child (e.g. ‘this child reacts strongly to separation from me’). Items are rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (definitely does not apply) to 5 (definitely does apply) for each individual child.
Minor adjustments have been made in the formulation of three items (one item on the scale dependency, two items on the scale closeness) to make the scale more suitable for child care settings. The STRS has been validated and norms are available for children aged 3 to 12 years old in the Dutch population (Koomen, Verschueren, Schooten, Jak, & Pianta, 2011, Koomen et al., 2007). Cronbach’s α coefficient for internal consistency of the STRS range from .84 for closeness, .86 for conflict, .76 for
dependency to .85 for the total scale for three-year old boys. For three-year-old girls, they range from .89 for closeness, .88 for conflict, .78 for dependency to .89 for the total scale (Koomen, et al., 2011, Koomen et al., 2007). In the present study, Cronbach’s α for closeness, conflict and dependency were
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.67, .90 and .74, respectively, for girls, and .79, .90 and .80 for boys. Internal consistency for the total scale, in terms of Cronbach’s α, was .85 for girls and .91 for boys in the present study.
Additional to the three scales of the STRS, a total score was calculated for each individual child. This was done using the following formula: (66 conflict score) + closeness score + (36 -dependency score) = total score for STRS (Koomen, et al., 2007). This total score measures the caregivers’ perception of the overall quality of the affective relation. A high total score usually
indicates relatively low scores for conflict and dependency and a relatively high score for closeness. Previous studies have reported significant associations of the STRS with observed teacher-student interactions, measures of problem behavior and prosocial behavior, teacher-student engagement and cognitive and social skills (Koomen et al., 2007, Doumen, Buyse, Colpin & Verschuere, 2011, Doumen, Koomen, Buyse, Wouters, & Verschueren, 2012, Peisner-Feinberg, Burchinal, Clifford, Culkin, Howes, Kagan & Yazejian, 2001). Also, sufficient measurement invariance across teacher and student gender has recently been found in a Dutch sample, indicating that the STRS captures the same constructs of the relations of male and female teachers with boys and girls (Spilt et al., 2012).
An online internet version of the questionnaire was created for the current study using Qualtrics software (Qualtrics, 2014, http://www.qualtrics.com). The STRS could be completed on any computer with an internet connection. Male and female colleagues completed the STRS twice, each reporting on their individual relation with one boy and one girl from their group. The order of questionnaires was randomized for child gender. If needed, participants were contacted by e-mail or phone to remind them to finish the questionnaire. Participants were thanked for their participation by e-mail.
Data Screening
Of the 40 caregivers, 36 caregivers (19 males, 17 females) took part in the observation sessions, since making an appointment for observations failed in four cases due to time restraints. Three participants (two males) were excluded from analyses because videos were mistakenly made with three children instead of two.Hence, analyses of videotaped observations were done with a final sample of 33 caregivers (17 males), of which there were 14 complete male-female colleague dyads.
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Twenty-six caregivers (13 males, 13 females) completed the questionnaires, reporting about their affective relationship with children. In some cases the caregivers did not complete the questionnaires because the caregiver or his/her colleague had stopped working in child care (n = 8), no child of the specified age could be selected from the child care group at the time of the questionnaire (n = 2) or they failed to return questionnaire (n = 6). One female caregiver only completed the questionnaire for a girl, because the selected boy was not coming to the child care centre at her working days anymore. Hence, 51 questionnaires were completed in total; 26 reporting about caregiver-girl relationships and 25 about caregiver-boy relationships.
Both observational data and reports on affective relationships were available for 22 caregivers. Of these, 14 caregivers completed the questionnaire about the same boy and girl that had participated in their observation session. In all other cases, one or two children had not been present during the observation, so that different children participated in the two measures. For exploring the association between caregivers’ behavior and their relationship with boys and girls, only the fourteen caregivers
that completed both measures with the same children were included.
Statistical Analyses
To examine the normality of distributions of the observation categories and the scales of the STRS, standardized skewness and kurtosis scores were evaluated using a critical standardized score of ±3.29 (Field, 2005). Outliers were also evaluated with this critical score, based on standardized scores. Based on these criteria, normality of the distributions was adequate for all scales and no outliers were identified.
In order to explore male and female caregivers’ interactive behavior and their affective relations with children in child care, data from the videotaped interactions and the STRS were analysed using the program SPSS Statistics 21 (IBM Corp., 2012). First, repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to analyse frequency data of the observations and scores on the STRS. Caregiver gender and child gender were entered into the repeated measures ANOVAs as within-factors, to control for shared variance in the sample. The repeated measures ANOVAs were first conducted on child gender (boy, girl) and caregiver gender (male, female) with sensitivity, structured guidance and
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knowledge-related teaching as the dependent variables, to detect gender effects on caregivers’ interactional behavior. Next, similar analyses were conducted with scores for closeness, conflict, dependency and the total score for the STRS as dependent variables, to explore how male and female caregivers experience their relationship with boys and girls.
Second, correlations coefficients were calculated to explore the association between caregivers observed behavior and their perception of the quality of their affective relationships with children. Kendall’s tau correlation coefficients were calculated to estimate associations between observed
behavior of the caregiver and the scores for closeness, conflict, dependency and the total score of the STRS. These correlations were calculated separately for boys and girls. The non-parametric Kendall’s tau correlation was used because of the small sample size available for this analysis (Field, 2005). Unfortunately, the small sample size in the current study did not allow doing a regression analysis.
Results
Observation Scale
Preliminary analyses.
Before running main analyses on the observational data, it was determined whether type of game that was played influenced the results. A one-way ANOVA was conducted in order to determine whether caregivers interacted differently with children dependent on the type of game that was played, that is, the game buckaroo versus the game animal-upon-animal. In total, 18 caregivers played buckaroo (ten male, eight female) and 15 caregivers played animal-upon-animal (seven male, eight female). Means and standard deviations for behavior categories by game type are presented in Table 5. This analysis revealed a statistically significant difference between the two types of games on category structured guidance, F(1, 32) = 6.37, p = .02. Caregivers showed more structured guidance towards children during the game buckaroo (M = 17.72, SD = 2.33), than during the game animal-upon-animal (M = 9.33, SD=2.32). Since type of game was randomized over male and female caregivers, there was no need to take measures to control for this effect. For the other observational categories, no effect of the type of game was found, all p > .05.
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To explore the association between sensitive behavior and challenging interaction, correlations were calculated for the four observation categories. These correlations were calculated separately for male and female caregivers. Because the sample sizes of the gender groups are small, Kendall’s tau correlation was used (Field, 2005). The correlations are shown in Table 6. Results indicated no statistically significant correlations between sensitive responsiveness, structured guidance, knowledge-oriented teaching or praise for male caregivers. For female caregivers, there was a negative correlation between praise and sensitive responsiveness, τ(16) = -.40, p = .03. This means that for female caregivers, more praising was associated with lower levels of sensitive responsiveness. No significant correlations were found between the other observational categories for female caregivers.
Repeated measures analyses.
Descriptive statistics of the observational categories and the ANOVA results are reported in Table 7. The repeated measures analyses were done with the 14 complete male-female colleague dyads that formed a final sample of 28 caregivers. There were no significant main effects for caregiver gender for any of the observation categories. This indicates that male and female caregivers showed similar levels of sensitive responsiveness, structured guidance, knowledge-oriented teaching and praise towards the children.
Table 5
Means and Standard Deviations for Caregiver Behavior Categories by Game Type
Sensitive responsiveness
Structured guidance
Knowledge-oriented teaching Praise
Game type M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) M (SD)
Buckaroo 54 .22 (17 .98) 17 .72 (9 .90) 4 .11 (5 .72) 7 .89 (4 .34)
Animal upon animal 57 .00 (17 .44) 9 .33 (8 .10) 8 .13 (5 .68) 6 .87 (5 .28)
Table 6
Correlations between Behavior Categories by Caregiver Gender
Female caregivers (n = 16) Male caregivers (n = 17)
Observation Category 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1. Sensitive responsiveness – - .29 .04 - .40* – .20 .10 .13 2. Structured guidance – .07 .14 – -.17 -.14 3. Knowledge-oriented teaching – - .09 – .12 4. Praise – –
Note. Kendall’s tau correlation coefficients are reported.
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Also, results suggest that caregivers interacted similar with boys and girls, since there were no main effects for child gender on measures of sensitive-responsiveness, structured guidance and knowledge-oriented teaching. Concerning praise, a main effect for child gender indicated that caregivers praised boys more often than girls. Further, no interaction effects were found for any of the observation categories, suggesting that the influence of child gender on the behavior of caregivers was similar for male and female caregivers.
In sum, analyses of the observations revealed no differences in the sensitive behavior of male versus female caregivers. It was not confirmed that female caregivers showed more sensitive behavior towards children than male caregivers. Also, expected differences regarding challenging behavior were not found: male caregivers did not challenge children more than female caregivers and boys were not challenged more by caregivers than girls. Finally, no interaction effects were found, suggesting that male caregivers did not differentiate more between boys and girls than female caregivers.
Table 7
Results for Sensitive and Challenging Behavior: Descriptive Statistics (Means and Standard Deviations) and GLM-Results (F-Values and Partial η2)
Descriptive Statistics GLM analyses
Male Caregivers (n = 14) Female caregivers (n = 14) Caregiver mean (n = 28) Caregiver gender Child gender Interaction M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) F(η2ρ) F(η2ρ) F(η2ρ) Sensitivity1 0.52(.04) 0.85(.06) 0.00(.00) Total 26.32 (2.25) 28.61 (2.58) Boys 27.86 (8.20) 30.07 (9.76) 28.96 (1.74) Girls 24.79 (12.78) 27.14 (14.34) 4.36 (0.66) Structured guidance 0.64(.01) 2.15(.14) 0.50(.04) Total 6.14 (1.22) 7.04 (1.40) Boys 6.50 (5.05) 8.29 (7.13) 7.39 (0.86) Girls 5.79 (5.79) 5.79 (5.09) 5.79 (0.94) Teaching2 1.82(.12) 0.49(.04) 0.91(.07) Total 2.11 (0.58) 3.43 (0.84) Boys 2.00 (2.86) 4.00 (4.10) 3.00 (0.69) Girls 2.21 (2.08) 2.86 (3.66) 2.54 (0.57) Praise 0.10(.01) 4.71(.27)* 0.07(.01) Total 3.54 (0.50) 3.82 (0.75) Boys 4.29 (2.92) 4.43 (3.06) 4.36 (0.66) Girls 2.79 (1.85) 3.21 (3.31) 3.00 (0.41) Note.
GLM = generalized linear model
1
Sensitive responsiveness, 2 Knowledge-oriented teaching
*
26 Student-Teacher-Relationship-Scale
Preliminary analyses.
Means and standard deviations of the Student-Teacher-Relationship Scale are shown in Table 8. Total relationship quality scores for the three-years-olds in this study were average, according to Dutch norm scores (Koomen et al., 2007). Except for boys’ conflict scores, scores on all scales correspond to average norm scores for three-year-old boys and girls. The reported conflict score for boys corresponds to a subclinical norm score. However, this higher-than-average-level of conflict with boys is not indicative of low overall quality of the relation, since boys’ scores for closeness and dependency and the total score on the STRS were average (Koomen et al., 2007). A one-way ANOVA showed that the order of completion of the STRS (boy-girl versus girl-boy) did not influence the scores, all p > .05.
To assess how Closeness, Dependency and Conflict were related to each other, bivariate Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated. These indicated a high, positive correlation between scores for Conflict and Dependency for girls, r(13) = .83 p < .001, and for boys, r(13) = .81, p = .001. For girls, there were no statistically significant correlations between the scores for Conflict and Closeness, r(13) = .08, p = .81, and for Closeness and Dependency, r(13) = .05, p = .89. Interestingly, for boys, there were moderate positive correlations between the scores for Closeness and Conflict, r(13) = .55, p = .05, and the scores for Closeness and Dependency, r(13) = .49, p = .09.
Repeated measures analyses.
Descriptive statisticsand results of the repeated measures ANOVAs for the Student-Teacher-Relationship Scale are reported in Table 8. As one female caregiver did not complete the questionnaire for one boy, this caregiver and her male colleague were excluded from the repeated measures analyses. Hence, these analyses were done with a sample of 24 caregivers who formed 12 complete male-female colleague dyads. Looking at the total quality of the affective relationships, there was a significant main effect for caregiver gender: female caregivers reported higher total quality of their relationship with children in child care than male caregivers. Regarding closeness, no main effect for caregiver gender was found, indicating that male and female caregivers reported similar levels of
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closeness in their relations with children. Significant main effects for caregiver gender on the conflict and dependency scales indicated that male caregivers reported more conflict and rated children as more dependent than female caregivers. There were no significant child effects for any of the relation scales, suggesting that caregivers reported similar levels of closeness, conflict and dependency in their relationships with boys as with girls. Also, caregivers rated similar total quality of relationship for boys and girls. Lastly, no significant caregiver and child gender interaction effects were found on any of the scales. Thus, the effect of child gender on scores on the relationship scale seems to be similar for male and female caregivers. Although the interaction effect on the closeness scale was not statistically significant according to the standard alpha level of .05, a trend effect was observed (p = .067). Cautious interpretation of this finding suggests that, compared to male caregivers, female caregivers reported more closeness in their relation with girls.
In sum, analyses of the STRS support the expectation that female caregivers reported higher total quality of their affective relationships than male caregivers. This corresponds to the fact that females reported lower levels of conflict and dependency in their relations with children than males.
Table 8
Results for Student-Teacher-Relationship Scale: Descriptive Statistics (Means and Standard Deviations) and GLM-Results (F-values and Partial η2) and Sidak Comparisons
Desciptive Statistics GLM Analyses
Male caregivers ( n= 12) Female caregivers (n = 12) Caregiver mean (n = 24) Caregiver Gender Child Gender Interaction M (SD) M (SD) M (SD) F(η2ρ) F(η2ρ) F(η2ρ) Total quality 11.40(.51)* 0.02(.00) 0.02(.00) Boys 112.00 (12.68) 123.00 (6.34) 117.50 (2.37) Girls 112.83 (12.81) 123.33 (11.37) 118.08 (2.84) Child mean 112.42 (2.70) 123.17 (2.04) Closeness 2.71(.20) 0.12(.01) 4.14 (.07) † Boys 46.92 (5.50) 47.50 (3.68) 47.21 (1.22) Girls 46.00 † (5.15) 49.25 † (3.08) 47.63 (0.97) Child mean 46.46 (1.35) 48.38 (0.73) Conflict 7.18(.40)* 0.10(.00) 0.01(.00) Boys 21.67 (9.40) 15.83 (4.20) 18.75 (1.74) Girls 22.33 (8.80) 16.75 (6.82) 19.54 (1.90) Child mean 22.00 (2.03) 16.29 (1.26) Dependency 7.51(.41)* 0.34(.03) 2.67(.20) Boys 15.25 (5.28) 10.67 (3.42) 12.96 (1.12) Girls 12.83 (5.18) 11.17 (3.93) 12.00 (1.06) Child mean 14.04 (0.91) 10.92 (0.90) Note.
GLM = generalized linear model
*
p <.05, † p <.10
†
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It was not found that female caregivers experienced closer relationships with children than male caregivers, or that they reported closer relationships with girls than with boys. Yet, a trend in the interaction effect for closeness tentatively suggests that female caregivers report more closeness with girls as compared to male caregivers. Further, it was not supported that caregivers experience more conflict with boys than with girls.
Associations between observed caregiver behavior and the STRS
The association between caregivers’ sensitive behavior and challenging behavior and their
perception of their affective relationships with children was explored using Kendall’s tau correlation coefficients. Correlations were calculated separately for male caregivers (n = 7) and female caregivers (n = 7). Table 9 presents the bivariate correlations among the study variables. Since sample size for this analysis was very small, results should be interpreted with some reserve.
It was expected that higher levels of sensitive behavior are related to higher levels of reported closeness and overall relationship quality. That is, scores for sensitive responsiveness were expected to be positively correlated to scores for closeness and the total score on the STRS and negatively to the conflict score. Results showed no significant correlations between sensitive responsiveness and closeness for male caregivers or female caregivers, τ(7) = -.10, p = .76 and τ(7) = -.10, p = .76, respectively. Also, there was no significant correlation between sensitive responsiveness and conflict for female caregivers, τ(7) = -.43, p = .18, or male caregivers, τ(7) = -.10, p = .18. Lastly, sensitive
responsiveness and the total score of the STRS were not significantly correlated for female caregivers,
Table 9
Correlation between Observed Caregiver Behavior Categories and Scores on the Student Teacher Relationship Scale Sensitive responsiveness Structured guidance
Knowledge-oriented teaching Praise
Malea Femaleb Male Female Male Female Male Female
Conflict -.10 -.43 .43 .14 .10 .05 -.20 .59
Closeness -.10 -.10 .20 -.68*
.05 .00 -.15 .05
Dependency .00 -.33 .31 .05 .05 .33 .05 .10
total STRS .05 .33 -.10 -.24 -.15 -.14 .05 -.49
Note. Kendall’s tau correlations are reported. a, b n = 7 * p < .05 (2-sided)
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τ(7) = .33, p = .29, or male caregivers, τ(7) = .05, p = .88. These results do not confirm the
hypothesis that observed sensitive responsiveness of the caregiver is positively related to higher reported relationship quality, more closeness or less conflict. The associations between challenging interaction of the caregiver and reported relationship qualities were examined on exploratory basis. Results point out a significant negative correlation between structured guidance and closeness for female caregivers, τ(7) = -.68, p = .03. This suggests that higher levels of structured guidance behavior of female caregivers go with lower levels of reported closeness in their relationship with children. This relation was not found for male caregivers. No other significant associations were found between observed caregiver behavior and their reported quality of relationships with children.
In sum, the expectancies regarding associations between observed caregiver sensitivity and reported relationship quality are not confirmed by the data. The finding that structured guidance and closeness are negatively correlated for female caregivers, but not for male caregivers, seems to suggest that associations between the two measures are dependent on caregiver gender.
Discussion
With the predominance of female caregivers in child care, male professional caregivers have not been subject of study until recently. Consequently, not much is known about their role in child care. This study was designed to explore gender effects on caregiver interactions and affective relations with children in child care. Three research goals were formulated. First, male and female caregivers were observed in interaction with a three-year-old boy and girl from their child care group, to investigate gender differences in sensitive and challenging behavior. Second, caregivers rated the quality of their affective relationships with these children, using the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS; Pianta, 2001, Koomen et al., 2007). Third, it was explored how daily interactive behavior of caregivers is associated to their relations with children.
