Identifying Relationally Aggressive Students: How Aligned are Teachers and Peers?

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Relational aggression, defined as damaging social status or relationships, significantly impacts urban minority youth's academic, socioemotional, and health outcomes.
• Discrepancies often exist between teacher and peer identification of relationally aggressive students, complicating targeted interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore factors influencing discordant and concordant identification of relationally aggressive students by peers and teachers.
• To examine the roles of prosocial behavior, perceived popularity, academic competence, and gender in these identification discrepancies.

Main Methods:

• The study involved 178 3rd-5th grade students from 11 urban classrooms.
• Data were collected through peer nominations and teacher ratings on various behavioral and academic factors.

Main Results:

• Students were more likely to be identified as relationally aggressive by peers than teachers when prosocial behavior decreased and academic motivation increased.
• Female students were more consistently identified by both informants when overt aggression ratings were higher.

Conclusions:

• Accurate identification of relationally aggressive students requires multi-informant perspectives due to differing perceptions.
• Findings suggest limitations in current detection methods and highlight areas for future research to improve identification and intervention for at-risk youth.