Preschool Teachers' Socialization of Emotion Knowledge: Considering Socioeconomic Risk

Area of Science:

• Early Childhood Education
• Developmental Psychology
• Social-Emotional Learning

Background:

• Preschoolers' emotion knowledge is crucial for early school success.
• Teachers' roles in emotion socialization are less understood than parents'.
• Socioeconomic risk may influence teachers' impact on emotion knowledge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how teachers' emotion socialization practices affect preschoolers' emotion knowledge.
• To examine if classroom socioeconomic risk moderates this relationship.
• To compare findings with existing parent emotion socialization literature.

Main Methods:

• 85 teachers and 327 preschoolers in high/low socioeconomic risk classrooms participated.
• Children's emotion knowledge was assessed twice.
• Teachers' emotion socialization (expressiveness, reactions, beliefs, language) was measured; hierarchical linear models were used.

Main Results:

• Most teacher emotion socialization effects were specific to high socioeconomic risk classrooms.
• Findings largely differed from the parent literature, emphasizing contextual importance.
• Only one result mirrored parent-child emotion socialization patterns.

Conclusions:

• Classroom context, particularly socioeconomic risk, significantly shapes teachers' influence on children's emotion knowledge.
• Teachers' emotion socialization strategies need context-specific adaptation.
• Future research should explore context-dependent emotion socialization interventions.