Tensions between the personal and the professional in close teacher-child relationships.

Quan-McGimpsey, Sharon ; Kuczynski, Leon ; Brophy, Kathleen 等

This study investigated teachers' experiences of tension in close relationships with individual children in early childhood education (ECE) settings. Structured interviews were conducted with 24 female teachers of children between ages of 3 and 5 (mean age = 3.9) regarding their conceptions of closeness and specific interactions where they experienced closeness with a particular child. Two interconnected themes were found: systemic tensions and ecological factors. The systemic tensions concerned dialectical contradictions that emerged when relating to individual children and included one child versus group, exclusive versus shared closeness, and parental role versus role of ECE teacher. The ecological factors concerned the system of relationships that were the source of the contradictions and included self, profession, parents, and children. Thematic analyses indicated that how teachers reported experiences of personal and professional tensions may be related to the intrapersonal processes involved in managing closeness with children.

Keywords: early childhood teachers, caregiver child relationships, qualitative evaluation, child care

**********

A teacher's relationship with a child plays an essential role in the child's adjustment in the early childhood classroom (Pianta, 2006). The relationship itself is complex and fraught with divergent expectations. On the one hand, effective caregiving relationships with young children require personal investment, physicality, affective responsiveness, and empathy. Research on affective features of the relationship, such as closeness (Buyse, Verschueren, Van de Water, Can Damme, & Maes, 2005), warmth (Pianta & Stuhlman, 2004), and attachment security (Howes, 1999), has found these features to be associated with positive behavioral adjustment (Birch & Ladd, 1998) and higher academic achievement (Hamre & Pianta, 2001). However, the teacher-child relationship is also expected to be a professional relationship, governed by institutional standards, such as developmentally appropriate practice (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997). Efforts have been made to distinguish the teacher-child relationship from mother-child relationships (Katz, 2000; Zhang, 2007) to help teachers maintain a professional distance and objectivity in the relationship, and to avoid teacher burnout, which is assumed to be associated with crossing boundaries between personal investment and professional distance (Noble & MacFarlane, 2005).

Recently, researchers have attempted to conceptualize teaching in a way that avoids dualistic either/or conceptions and have moved toward a more holistic view that recognizes the inherent complexity of the teacher-child relationship. Models of teacher-child relationships should capture the experience of participating in an affective interpersonal relationship while carrying out teaching and caregiving functions. Manning-Morton (2006) argued for a relationship-based model of teacher training that is focused on the interpersonal processes of teaching and not only the content of teaching. Similarly, Goldstein (1999) argued that the teacher-child relationship is a proximal context not only for the development of the child but also for the caregiver. Teachers experience a moral investment in the child, described as an ethic of care, characterized by receptivity, empathic reciprocity, and responsibility. More recently, Quan-McGimpsey, Kuczynski, and Brophy (2011) found that teachers report three domains of teacher-child relationships when describing the experience of closeness with individual children: a professional domain, an attachment domain, and an intimate personal domain, characterized by mutual enjoyment, a sense of emergence over time, and exclusivity. They argued that the experience of closeness in the teacher-child relationship is multifaceted and inherently blends different functions, with the personal domain predominating.

This holistic view of the teacher-child relationship is echoed by new conceptions of parent-child and professional-client relationships. Researchers have drawn attention to the complexity of the parent-child relationship, whereby parents engage children across different domains of the relationship that vary in power dynamics and simultaneously carry out multiple roles, involving authority, attachment, and intimacy (Lollis & Kuczynski, 1997; Oliphant & Kuczynski, 2011). Bugental and Goodnow (1998) proposed that parents and children cycle through three domains of interaction: attachment, hierarchical, and reciprocal. Similarly, researchers in professional relationships, such as social work (Alexander & Charles, 2009), nursing (McGuire, Dougherty, & Atkinson, 2006), and family therapy (Weingarten, 1992), have argued for the recognition of the therapeutic role of intimate interactions between clients and professionals. Alexander and Charles (2009) reported on social workers' awareness of the mutuality and reciprocity in their relationships with clients, as well as the tension between their lived experience and the undermining restrictions placed upon them by professional norms of social work practice.

Recognition of the inherent interpersonal dimension of teacher-child relationships opens the door to analyses of neglected dynamics and psychological processes of teachers' interactions with children. For example, the domains of professional teacher/professionalism, caregiver/attachment, the personal/intimacy (Quan-McGimpsey et al., 2011) do not exist in isolation but rather interact in ways that constrain how the teacher behaves in each domain. These constraints are experienced as tensions that teachers must resolve in their daily interactions with children. The idea of inherent tensions in the teacher-child relationship emerged spontaneously in a recent study on teachers' experiences of closeness in interactions with children (Quan-McGimpsey et al., 2011) but was not analyzed. The purpose of this study is to examine the nature of tensions that teachers reported to gain insight into their interpersonal awareness as they manage closeness with individual children in their classrooms.

Our approach to understanding the experience of tension was theoretically guided by a dialectical concept of contradiction (Baxter & Montgomery, 1997). In social relational theory, contradictions in various forms, such as conflict, ambivalence, and expectancy violations, are inherent in close relationships and are experienced as tension (Kuczynski, Pitman, & Mitchell, 2009). Dialectical tensions are not considered to be negative outcomes but rather are potentially generative because they entail points of uncertainty. They provide opportunities for individuals to create new meanings that temporarily resolve the contradiction, sending them on new trajectories for action and understanding. We were interested in exploring whether teachers' reports of tension could be understood within a dialectical framework.

METHOD

Participants

Twenty-four female teachers employed in public nonprofit and for-profit licensed centers (four nonprofit, one for-profit) in Toronto, Canada, and in surrounding medium-size urban cities, participated in this study. All were current teachers of 3- to 5-year-old children in a child care setting. Demographic information included age of teacher (mean age between 21-30 years), their highest level of education (79% early childhood education [ECE] diploma, 25% completed or currently completing university degrees, 1% completing a graduate degree), and their years of teaching experience (33%, in each category, had experience of either fewer than 5 years, between 5-14 years, or more than 14 years). The teachers' ethnic backgrounds were reported as follows: 42% North American, 25% European descent, 13% Asian descent, 1% multiethnic, 17% no response. Child care centers in urban Southern Ontario were recruited using a Municipal Government Child Care listing. The selected child care centers represented diverse settings (e.g., hospital, community based) and philosophical approaches (e.g., Reggio inspired, emergent curriculum) found in the community.

Procedures

The study was described as a study of teachers' experience of closeness with children in their classrooms. Interviews took approximately 45 minutes to complete and were conducted at the child care center. Using the Long interview methodology (McCracken, 1988), teachers were initially asked general questions about their conceptions of closeness, followed by questions regarding specific experiences. Using critical incident methodology (Flanagan, 1954), with a particular child in mind, teachers were asked to recall, in vivid detail, three specific incidents of closeness that had occurred in their child care classroom within the past 6 months, as well as three incidents during which they did not feel close to the child. Subsequently, teachers were asked about their strategies for creating or maintaining closeness, children' s contributions to close interactions, and barriers to closeness in teacher-child relationships. Findings on teachers' conceptions of closeness and strategies for maintaining closeness are reported in Quan-McGimpsey et al. (2011). These analyses concern what the researchers interpreted as teachers' reports of tension in the relationship that occurred spontaneously throughout the interview.

Thematic analyses. Data analysis used an interpretive induction framework (Kuczynski & Daly, 2003). The theoretical and empirical literature on the relational dimensions of parent-child and teacher relationships, including professionalism (Katz, 2000), attachment (Cassidy, 2008; Howes, 1999), intimacy (Weingarten, 1991), and dialectical tension in close relationships (Baxter & Montgomery, 1997; Kuczynski et al., 2009), provided initial sensitizing concepts for interpreting interview data. These concepts did not determine the final categories, because care was taken to identify concepts in teachers' narratives that differed from the existing literature. For example, the themes of ecological factors and personal and professional tensions emerged as an unanticipated finding from the teachers' narratives.

The primary identification and interpretation of categories was carried out by the researcher, using the method of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The emerging themes, subthemes, and variations within subthemes also were discussed during approximately 15 group meetings involving two additional researchers: one with expertise in ECE, and the other with expertise in parent-child relationships. These meetings involved reading the transcripts to allow for different suggestions on data interpretations, as well as for planning the next steps in the analyses.

Trustworthiness. To ensure the quality and rigor of this study, the researchers met the criteria of credibility, transferability, and dependability. Compatibility between the construction of realities in the minds of the teachers and the teachers' attributions by the researcher (credibility) was attained by conducting interviews until data saturation occurred (Seale, 1999); no new themes emerged. During interviews, nondirective questions were asked from a variety of perspectives to ensure flexibility in probing. Transferability, or the extent of applicability of findings to the reader of this study, was attained by collecting thick descriptions of data (Seale, 1999) from teachers' narratives, and repeated review of transcripts by the researchers until a consensus was reached over coding and thematic categories, to present sufficient data to support assertions and discrepant data. To meet the criterion of dependability, an audit trail of all documentation (e.g., interview notes), running accounts of the process of the inquiry (e.g., audit log), and the product (e.g., group meetings, data, findings, interpretations) ensured dependability in the consistency of this study's results.

RESULTS

Teachers' reports of tension in the relationship concerned not only the dyadic relationship itself, but also the wider ecological system in which the relationship was embedded. Two interconnected themes were identified: systemic tensions, which concerned particular tensions that emerge from the system of relationships, and ecological factors, which concerned individual elements of the ecological system of the relationship. The general model, consisting of the three systemic tensions and four ecological factors, is presented in Figure 1.

Systemic Tensions in the Teacher-Child Relationship

Teachers spontaneously reported tensions that arose in their experiences of closeness with individual children. These systemic tensions were interpreted within a dialectical framework. Baxter and Montgomery (1997) proposed that dynamic tension between stability and change may or may not be consciously felt or expressed by the individuals yet plays an active role in contributing to relational changes. The term dialectics "refers to the ongoing, ever-changing interaction between unified oppositions" (Baxter & Montgomery, 1997, p. 327), whereby contradictions between elements are assumed to be inherently embedded in a whole relationship. Out of these contradictions, which are subparts, emerges a whole new transaction, which has been referred to as a "new synthesis." However, this novel synthesis is only temporary and may mark the beginning of a new contradiction (Kuczynski & Parkin, 2009).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

In this study, teachers reported three recurring tensions that were interpreted as emerging from the ecological system of teacher-child relationships encompassing teacher, profession, parent, and child: attention to one child versus group, exclusive versus shared closeness, and parental role versus role of ECE teacher.

Systemic Tension: Attention to One Child Versus Group

The fact that some children are personally closer to some teachers than others was experienced as a reality but challenged the very principle of providing equal care to all children in the classroom, as most teachers have been taught to do. Forty-six percent of the teachers were torn between wanting to give personal attention to individual children with whom they felt close, and feeling the professional need to spend equal time with the whole group (e.g., "specific needs that he has and trying to meet them, as well as trying to get the rest of the group involved and ... [giggles] ... challenging at times" (Teacher 13, 12 years). One teacher pointed out how she attended to individual and group needs: "She loved Raffi ... music, and then books ... so those were the kinds of things I would try to share with her as well to find those things that she would like ... things that I would try to do with most children" (Teacher 02, 10 years). However, one experienced teacher worried about the amount of attention she was giving to the individual child versus the whole group and was able to think through her shift in strategy aloud:

 And I wondered if, maybe, that closeness might be getting too much?
 Just with that particular child ... so I had to kinda stand back a
 little and think, you know, um, am I giving the whole group the
 same because, you know, it was like he was wanting my attention all
 the time and then he wasn't playing or practicing his social skills
 with the other children and that kind of thing ... so I think with
 closeness you really have to really be aware of that kind of thing,
 especially when you see the behaviors changing ... so I had to
 become a little bit more firmer [sic] with my expectations of him;
 with the bathroom, for instance. (Teacher 04, 18 years)

Concern about how much time to spend with one child, at the expense of spending time with the group, was the most common personal and professional tension voiced by teachers in relation to close teacher-child relationships. The latter quote not only reflects the tension the teacher felt about her closeness with the child in relation to the rest of the class, but also indicates her need to resolve the tension by monitoring behavioral changes in the child as well as changing her own behavior with regard to the child. These behavioral decisions suggest that the teacher created a novel synthesis arising from her processing of the internal contradictions that she experienced (Kuczynski & Parkin, 2009).

Systemic Tension: Exclusive Versus Shared Closeness

The second most frequent tension, expressed by 30% of teachers, was exclusive versus shared closeness, revealing the ambivalence teachers felt about wanting to feel exclusively close to a child while also wanting to see the child develop relationships with other individuals. Teachers reported that they felt tension about personally wanting to be the one who was close with the child, while professionally hoping the child would be happy with other staff and children:

 And then, a couple of times, ... she's sad, she wouldn't come to me
 right away, she would go to another staff, she'd like go to another
 staff (names of 2 teachers in room) first, and I'd go ..., "Oh,"
 which is ok, too. I would want her close to other staff, too, but
 what stood out was, "Oh, she didn't come to me." ... You know,
 she's outgrown me ... whatever, ok, I'm not needed for her....
 (Teacher 03, 4 years)

The teachers were sometimes uncertain about how far to extend their personal desires in light of their professional responsibilities, finding it to be a difficult balancing act.

Systemic Tension: Parental Role Versus Role of ECE Teacher

Surprisingly, only three teachers spontaneously reported that they were torn between the role of parent and the role of professional teacher when interacting with children. The two roles were sometimes perceived as being compatible, but at other times, teachers were concerned that assuming a parental role intruded on the boundaries of the child's biological parent:

 Just because I think that maybe they're not on board with some of
 the things that are important with him and I think.... "Just back
 off a little bit and just let this family do what they need to do."
 Then I see the child in certain times and I think, you know, he
 really needs that extra support from somebody outside the family,
 perhaps, that he also sees on a daily basis ... 7 a.m. to 6 p.m....
 and then going home after that. Within that time frame ... he's a
 part of my life. Not family, because I don't really think like that
 ... you know, somebody that I need to look after and maintain and
 nurture and keep safe. (Teacher 20, 10 years)

That there were so few teachers who expressed tension about the distinction between teaching and parenting contradicts Katz's (2000) argument that the lines between parenting and teaching are blurry. Perhaps the distinction between professional and parental roles had been so clearly instilled in ECE diploma programs that teachers thought it was inappropriate to express ambivalence about maintaining a clear distinction between these roles. Alternatively, teachers may have accepted that the lived reality of teaching is more ambiguous than the model of separation that was promoted in their professional training.

In summary, the recurring tensions reported by teachers appear to be manifestations of contradictions between personal and professional domains of teachers' close relationships with individual children. Such tensions may arise from an inherent ambivalence between expectations for teachers to implement an institutional approach toward the child and their personal needs and experiences of the relationship that cause them to feel differently from the professional model in which they were trained. However, as indicated in the examples provided, some teachers not only felt dialectical tensions associated with closeness, but also had moved toward a new synthesis by showing evidence of a qualitative shift in the representation of their respective situations.

Ecological Factors Contributing to Tensions in the Teacher-Child Relationship

Four subthemes were identified as teacher experiences stemming from the ecological context of teaching that may impinge on the tensions that teachers experienced in close relationships with children: self as teacher, the profession, parents, and children.

Ecological Factor: Self as Teacher

All of the teachers in this study reported that they had formed personal relationships with particular children that provided personal satisfaction or that drew on their experience of close personal relationships. The most frequent ecological theme expressed by teachers in considering closeness concerned their own participation in the ecological system of the teacher child relationship. This was expressed in three subthemes: personal identification, personal need, and familiarity in parenting/being parented.

Personal identification. Teachers looked for, and found closeness in, features that reflected a part of themselves in the child. There seemed to be a spark of interest that was of a personal nature that was ignited in each teacher (e.g., "she came into the room and she was just all bouncy and she reminded me of ... myself when I was her age"; Teacher 14, 1 year; and "the children that I have developed a close relationship to are almost a mirror of myself at a younger age or from the stories I've been told"; Teacher 21, 15 years). Another teacher was moved by her experience of providing comfort and physical closeness as she helped a child through a painful experience, similar to the pain she experienced as a child and an adult:

 her mom had given her medication ... it was SO painful for her,
 like, excruciating, she was screaming and crying ... that's when
 like it really hurt me and I felt it ... like as if she, as if it
 was myself ... like, I just didn't want her be in that much pain
 ... so I knew then ... I really, really deeply felt for her ...
 like I felt like crying ... and I was just holding her and just
 rubbing her tummy and she was just clinging right onto me. I was
 giving her the comfort she needed and I know she felt comfortable
 with me and I just loved being that person. (Teacher 06, 1 year)

Teachers gravitated toward children who shared similar characteristics as themselves. This awareness of their personal bias could serve as a possible source of tension for teachers.

Personal need. Teachers also talked about their exclusive influence on the child, as shown in greetings and actions in their role as comforter, playmate, and teacher who best understood the child's language and needs. For example, one teacher described how she was favored by the child over another teacher:

 Well, she was a supply teacher, so there was no connection ... and
 as soon as I walked in, he just looked at me with this beam on his
 face and he came right away, asking for the hug and he ... sat on
 my lap and stuff like that ... that made me realize, yeah, that
 this is a close connection. (Teacher 05, 22 years)

Another teacher not only spoke of how the child wanted to be with her, but also how she liked the fact that she was the "chosen" teacher (e.g., "she wanted me to come sit with her.... No one else, just me and her"; Teacher 11, 6 years).

Personal need also was evident when teachers said that they anticipated feeling sadness when it was time for children with whom they felt close to graduate from the program. Teachers anticipated a personal sense of loss before the child's departure. At the same time, there was likely a feeling of guilt accompanying these sad feelings, especially because, professionally, they knew that they should be feeling a sense of pride about the child's graduation into the school system.

Teacher-child closeness fulfilled the teacher's personal need for a sense of "mattering" (Marshall & Lambert, 2006) in a unique relationship. However, this personal need also may create tension because teachers have a professional responsibility to other children in the group, as well as to promoting the child's development as a separate individual.

Familiarity in parenting/being parented. Teachers also used their personal histories of parenting and being parented as a foundation for their understanding of close relationships with children in the ECE setting. Almost one half of the teachers who were parents referred to their own experiential knowledge of parenting and how they incorporated it into the teaching context (e.g., "So, and me being a parent as well ... you just ... know that ... it's a really good point to get to know the kids the same way 'cause I think that's what makes your class work"; Teacher 13, 12 years). One teacher talked about how her own son influenced her preferences for certain types of children: "I like to deal with someone who isn't the ordinary. I mean my own son isn't the ordinary. Yeah, he has ADD. So, ... learning through that, I've brought it to school as well. I try to keep it separate, but ..." (Teacher 17, 6 years). Another teacher acknowledged similarities between her own child and the child with whom she felt closeness in the classroom by saying, "Sometimes it's something that you're familiar with.... That child reminds you of your own child. You can see personalities of your own children in the children in your classroom" (Teacher 10, 30 years).

Teachers who were not parents explicitly identified with the parenting role in the way they interacted with children. Their narratives included being someone who shared humor with the child and was fun, yet also was firm, responsible, there for comfort and support, and spent one-on-one time with the child at quiet times, like bedtime:

 nap time was the hardest time of the day for her ... she'd have to
 give me a hug and a kiss (laughs) ... like when she was with her
 mom, and so for whatever reason I guess we just connected and that
 and I was able to give her the support she needed and understand.
 (Teacher 02, 10 years)

That teachers transferred experiences from their personal experiences of parenting and being parented within the context of the classroom with other children could be a valuable background resource for teachers. However, this strategy must be balanced against teachers' need to maintain their status as a professional. This balancing of roles may give rise to tensions between the borders of the private and professional self.

Ecological Factor--Profession

Teachers talked about the association between the ECE profession and having close relationships with children. Teachers reported on their professional aspirations and the need for professional affirmation as qualified specialists while being in close relationships with children.

Professional aspirations. Teachers spoke about their desire, as professionals, to teach well and the challenges they faced in being needed in relation to their closeness with children. One aspect of the profession was their aspiration of being an effective teacher. Teachers met these teaching goals by showing sensitivity and reacting positively in play situations, providing reassurance to children who don't often get noticed, seeing learning taking place as a result of their teaching, demonstrating an ability to manage challenging behavioral and socioemotional expressions, such as tantrums or moodiness, or fostering positive change in children's behavior over time, such as promoting the development of empathy in children. One teacher expressed her joy in successfully assisting a child (e.g., "'I did it! I did it!' [child stated]. And I said: 'Yeah, you did it.' ... not me. You did it.... It's very rewarding for me just seeing her excited"; Teacher 17, 6 years).

Professional affirmation. Teachers indicated that interacting with children in the role of teachers also fulfilled their important needs to feel competent as professionals. Unlike the theme of personal needs, teachers' professional needs were stated in a generic and distanced manner (e.g., "Well, it makes me feel great knowing that I helped and we trust each other and it's great"; Teacher 03, 4 years). Other teachers spoke of their ability to make children feel secure (e.g., "But I think that they feel closer to me when they're experiencing difficulty because they feel safe.... I feel probably in the role of a protector at that point"; Teacher 21, 15 years). Teachers also mentioned staff recognition of their unique teaching skills (e.g., "They wanted me to take on the role because they know I thrive on the challenge ... that somebody has physical or whatever his problems [are] with [the] teacher.... I thrive on that stuff, so ... it's a challenge. I love that"; Teacher 23, 2 years).

The ecological factor of profession demonstrates the potential duality of a teacher's role as "personal" and "professional." To the extent that combining these roles is experienced as incompatible, teachers may be forced to make decisions about the degree of closeness in their relationships with individual children. Sumsion (2003) argued that "developmentally appropriate practice" limits teachers' interactions with children by idealizing images of children and their families, which affects the way that teachers engage in practice. This disconnect between personal experience of relationships with children and depictions of best practices in the field may contribute to the teachers' experience of tension.

Ecological Factor--Parents

Teachers frequently commented on their relationships with parents in their narratives of maintaining close relationships with children. Parents were regarded as being variously allies who support (or as facilitators who mediate) their relationships with children, or as obstacles to the teacher-child relationship.

Parents as allies. Some teachers perceived that parents acted as a resource supporting the teachers' relationships with their children. The content of the information provided by parents was important to teachers. As one teacher stated, "I had also developed a close relationship with her morn and with both of the parents just talking to them, and that also helped me understand (child's name) better" (Teacher 06, 1 year).

Teachers viewed parents as assisting them in providing information to bridge any gaps between home and child care, thereby helping them to interact with their children more effectively.

Parents as facilitators. Teachers also reported that parents initiated the promotion of close teacher-child relationships. Parents and teachers mutually engaged in routine-like play scenarios, often during greetings and departure times, to create smooth transitions for the child to ease in and out of the center at the beginning and end of the day. For example, when a child wouldn't give the teacher a hug, the mother said, "You're not going to give your second mom a hug?" (Teacher 07, 4 years). When the child ran back and gave her a hug, the teachers joyfully reflected on what the mother said.

At times, parents were reported as being facilitators by strategizing with the teachers about how to support the child in her transition to her new preschool classroom. At other times, parents were not viewed as supporting the teacher-child relationship.

Parents as obstacles. Some teachers did not see the parents as allies in the relationships and expressed indifference or ambivalence toward them (e.g., "I'm extremely close to the child and not to the parents. The parents are, you know, great ... I don't even share things I share with (child's name) ... a weird situation.... Professional level, everything is where it's supposed to be, but ... I'm not excited to see his parents"; Teacher 24, 9 years). Another teacher acknowledged the importance of her relationship with the child's parents yet also admitted that some parents were barriers to her own relationship with their children:

 There are some parents in here that [I] love to talk with and it's
 a great relationship. I understand that parents are a whole part of
 [the] learning process because it's a two-way learning experience
 ... but if I never had to see another parent again, I would love
 it. Like, if they just push their kids through a little door and
 their complaints were sent somewhere else ... and
 comments--negative or positive--I don't want to hear them. I just
 want to focus on the children. It's the parents that ruin it
 sometimes. (Teacher 11, 6 years)

Perceiving parents as allies may be a positive factor in the teachers' ecological system. However, perceiving parents to be obstacles may be a source of tension. Some teachers felt the need to create balance in the children's lives, thus taking on a competing parental role to counteract the parents' perceived negative influences. Others who were indifferent to parents--either as a result of conflict, or with the belief that it is not necessary--may experience inner dissonance stemming from professional ECE goals for teachers and parents to create a strong cooperative partnership that will benefit children.

Ecological Factor--Children

Children also were discussed as agents with their own personal needs that had to be met in the teacher-child relationship. The child--as an ecological factor contributing demands on the teacher--was most often discussed with reference to children with whom teachers felt close, but even those relationships posed behavioral and social-emotional challenges.

Teachers described their responses to children who were noted to be behaviorally challenging (e.g., testing, conflicts with peers, disruptive in circle- and floor-play times) as giving those children the attention they needed to succeed, and feel protected and calm. One teacher said:

 He has a tendency to just walk up to snack and grab a piece of
 fruit where we have ... a routine where we sit at the table. I'm
 more likely to allow (child's name) to just grab the fruit and kind
 of wink at him and make him quickly go on his way. (Teacher 20, 10
 years)

When children have emotional challenges (e.g., feeling down, difficulties expressing themselves using words, aggressive, unpredictable temper), teachers reported their persistence in working through issues by giving the children attention, treating them as friends, engaging in consistent, predictable routines, and patiently responding to the child's outbursts.

Like teachers, children had particular needs and specific teachers whom they thought could meet their individual needs (e.g., "It seems, especially after those tantrums and those fits, she gets very attached. She gets very possessive of me"; Teacher 18, 1 year). Children's needs are ever-changing and the need for teachers to adapt to these changes is important--just as children adapt to ongoing changes imposed by teachers. With such a fluid and interdependent relationship, teachers and children need to remain flexible, which poses ongoing tensions and uncertainties for the teacher-child dyad.

In summary, teachers indicated in their narratives that they were aware that their experience of closeness was embedded in an arrangement of other elements in the ecology of their social systems. According to Parks (1997), "From beginning to end, personal relationships are continuously embedded in the social context created by interactions with other network members and through which individual desires are enacted and cultural values realized" (p. 370).

DISCUSSION

Elfer and Dearnley (2007) reported that nursery practitioners who are in close relationships with children are frequently faced with social dilemmas. This study provided insight into the source and nature of these dilemmas, which were conceptualized as dialectical tensions between the personal and professional roles that teachers straddle as they form close relationships with the children under their guidance and care in the ECE context. It also begins to outline a model for understanding how teachers move from the experience of the tension toward their resolution. We argue that the management of teacher-child closeness is a complex process for teachers

and can be understood from the perspective of an ecological dialectical model composed of two parts: (1) an ecological system of relationships, which included the teacher's own experiences and personal history, his or her interpretation of professional expectations, experiences with parents, and experiences with individual children, and (2) the teacher's tension between the personal and professional. When examining how teachers spoke of their responses to specific incidents of closeness with children, one half of the teachers' narratives focused on their own personal needs or their own historical perspective of parenting, whereas the other half involved external systems, including the profession, children, and parents. These results support Hinde's (1979) contention that "every relationship is embedded in a nexus of other relationships" (p. 214). This suggests that as researchers seek to investigate the nature of close teacher-child relationships, it is important to consider not only the dyad, but also the larger social system from which relationships and tensions continue to evolve.

Teachers' tensions arose out of their narratives of incidents of closeness with individual children. These tensions revealed recurring patterns of ambivalence, which imposed a difficult strain on teachers. Yet these predicaments forced the teachers to weigh the implications that their impending decision would have on their personal relationship with an individual child against their professional relationship with others.

The dialectical framework of the model has two implications. First, it suggests that tensions arise from contradictions inherent in the elements of the ecological system of the teacher-child relationship. The teachers' narratives suggested a linkage between the teachers' conceptualization of each social system in relation to closeness and intimacy with individual children, and the nature of the tensions that they experienced. Similarly, Manning-Morton (2006) identified a connection between education practitioners' thinking, feeling, and doing, whereby associations were made between educator's experiences and children's experiences. The second implication of the model suggests that tensions give rise to novel syntheses or change as teachers cope with the contradictions that they experience. In this study, each tension faced by teachers required a measured decision about how to manage relational closeness, and each decision was influenced by the individual teacher's conceptualizations of closeness, as well as by other systems outside the teacher-child relationship (e.g., profession, parents, child). For example, if a teacher was sharing a familiar and intimate sleep-time ritual with a child with whom there was a close connection, and it was interrupted by a conflict taking place in another part of the room, inner tension (associated with whether to remain focused on the individual child or to resolve the conflict with the others; i.e., attention to child versus group) would arise. At the same time, the teacher would think about how her decision would result in different degrees of closeness while weighing her options based on her conceptions of closeness, from a personal, professional, and/or relational perspective. In measuring the pros and cons of her actions, the teacher must make a calculated decision. The teacher could decide to maintain her familiar strategy, or she could opt for a new strategy requiring a qualitative change in that strategy. For example, contrary to her previous practices, the teacher may elect to favor the resolution of the conflict over the individual whom, she feels, must learn to become independent and cope with unexpected interruptions. Brief as these inner conflicts may be, it is expected that this process is frequently revisited by teachers on a daily basis. Elfer and Dearnley (2007) acknowledged teachers' consciousness of their dedication to the profession by reporting that educators often resolve their dilemmas through the use of a "social defense system" by minimizing physical contact to create a manageable psychological "position" that will be defensible against possible unprofessional criticism.

The struggle to make a decision about tensions involving closeness with children in the classroom, along with the external systems affecting the decision, is not an easy one for teachers as they endeavor to maintain social equilibrium. Other researchers have reported on the teacher's need to maintain a professional identity while struggling with the personal domain in their close relationships with clients in other helping professions (Alexander & Charles, 2009; McGuire et al., 2006; Weingarten, 1992) as well as with children (Elfer & Dearnley, 2007; Goldstein, 1999; Noble & McFarlane, 2005) in early education settings.

Manning-Morton (2006) argued that the personal domain (emotional, physical practices) should be conceptualized as a part of the professional domain. In this study, it is apparent that early education teachers have not yet merged the personal and professional domains, resulting in their expressed dialectical tensions. Perhaps achieving such a holistic conception of the teacher-child relationship, independent of training, is a developmental outcome of more experienced teachers.

The fact that dialectical tension exists between the personal and professional merits further research. Academic and professional ECE requirements dictated by tertiary institutions and professional ECE associations provide standards for teaching performance. There are expectations inherent in the field that these standards will be met. Thijs, Koomen, and van der Leij (2008) contended that teachers possess professional scripts of interactions with their students, which influence how they interpret and utilize strategies. It is conceivable that the pressure to meet professional standards in the field has an effect on the tension felt by teachers when they think they were straddling the line between personal and professional needs in close teacher-child relationships. It would be interesting to further examine the ecological impact of social systems, in other contexts, such as kindergarten classrooms, as well as to investigate other emerging dialectical tensions in close teacher-child relationships. Ethnographic inquiry of moment-to-moment decision-making by classroom teachers, in contrast to the post hoc reflections used in this study, may reveal potential differences.

A limitation of this study was that further narratives comparing personal and professional tensions, based on teachers' years of teaching experience, would have provided a more informative analysis. Although years of teaching experience was a factor that was considered when designing the study, the emergence of personal and professional tensions became evident only after the analysis of the narratives, and this limited the number and scope of comparisons that could be made between teachers. In addition, a closer examination of the pedagogical philosophies of the early education settings would reveal any limitations on the diversity of perspectives reported in the teachers' narratives.

This research highlights the neglected perspective of the personal dimension in teaching. Despite assertions that teachers must enact a professional role with children, Katz (2000) also argued that:

 The content of our relationship with children should not be mainly
 about rules, regulations, and conduct, but about their increasing
 knowledge and developing understandings of those things within and
 around them worth knowing more about and understanding more deeply,
 more fully, and more accurately. (p. 45)

Without accessing teachers' insights into their close relationships with children in this study, it is unlikely that the contradictions that exist in the process of maintaining such closeness would have emerged.

The findings of this study reveal the complexity of the role of the early education teacher and emphasize the need for tertiary institutions and professional ECE associations to incorporate self-reflective study into their courses. The findings also suggest that time be devoted, in centers, to providing ongoing professional development meant to evaluate teachers' relationships with children through sharing experiences, challenging their own ideas, and reflecting on alternate strategies. By integrating a component of personal awareness with theoretical knowledge, teachers may develop a professional approach to fostering effective relationships within the classroom through an analytical understanding of decision-making structures that will inform their power to transform practice. In other words, teachers "need to be able to look at their own motivations and understand where they come from and through the knowledge they gain about themselves to better understand and adjust their responses to children" (Manning-Morton, 2006, p. 48).

DOI: 10.1080/02568543.2012.738287

APPENDIX

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR EARLY EDUCATION TEACHER

Part 1 : General Questions About "Closeness"

1. Tell me what comes to mind when I use the word "closeness" in reference to a teacher's relationship with children in his/her classroom.

2. Tell me what comes to mind when I use the words "not feeling close" in reference to a teacher's relationship with children in his/her classroom.

Part 2: "Closeness" With an Individual Child

Background Information on the Individual Child

Now let's take these ideas that you have talked about and relate them to a child that you feel particularly close to and have known for over 6 months. Please tell me only the first name of the child. I am only requesting this so that you will keep this child in mind as we discuss this section of the interview.

Can you describe to me what your relationship with _____ is like?

3. In terms of feeling "close" to _____, do you ever think about what your relationship will be like over time? If so, how do you think your relationship with will be like in the future?

Recent Examples of "Closeness"

Now we are going to talk about your recollection of recent examples when you have felt close to this child.

4. I'd like you to recall specific times when you felt especially "close" to _____. Give me 3 recent examples of when you felt "close" with

Recent Examples of Not Feeling "Close"

OK, we've just talked about examples of "closeness." Now, we are going to talk about your recollection of recent examples when you have not felt close to this child. Before we begin, can you clarify for me, when I say "not feeling close to this child," to you, does this mean you that you still feel "somewhat close" or "not close at all" to that child?

Rationale: Opening question for clarification, where, depending on the response, one could alter the wording, throughout the interview on items related to not feeling as close.

5. I'd like you to recall specific times when you did not feel "closeness" with. Give me 3 recent examples of when you didn't feel "close" with

Recent Examples Movement between "Closeness" & "Noncloseness"

Sometimes, in teacher-child relationships, there are times where there is a feeling of "closeness" to a particular child, and then times when there is a lack of "closeness"--yet, somehow "closeness" is often restored. I would like you to think about those times.

6. So, recall specific times when you did not feel "close" with _____, but later were able to feel close again. Give me 3 recent examples of when this shift from not feeling "close" moved back to a feeling of "closeness" with _____.

Strategies for Building "Closeness" With the Individual Child

You have been telling me about your experience of being in a close relationship with a particular child. I'd now like you to think about the strategies you use to build "closeness" with _____.

7. Do you do anything in particular to maintain this "closeness" with _____? What kinds of things do you do?

8. Do you think _____ contributes to creating or maintaining "closeness" with you? What kinds of things does he/she do?

REFERENCES

Alexander, C., & Charles, G. (2009). Caring, mutuality and reciprocity in social worker-client relationships. Journal of Social Work, 9, 5-22.

Baxter, L. A., & Montgomery, B. M. (1997). Rethinking communication in relationships from a dialectical perspective. In S. Duck (Ed.), Handbook of personal relationships (2nd ed., pp. 325-349). London, England: Wiley.

Birch, S. H., & Ladd, G. W. (1998). Children's interpersonal behaviors and the teacher-child relationship. Developmental Psychology, 34, 934-946. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 77-101.

Bredekamp, S., & Copple, C. (Eds.). (1997). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs (Rev. ed.). Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Bugental, D. B., & Goodnow, J. J. (1998). Social, emotional, and personality development. In W. Damon & N. Eisenberg (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology.. Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (5th ed., pp. 389-462). New York, NY: Wiley.

Buyse, E., Verschueren, K., Van de Water, G., Can Damme, J., & Maes, E (2005, April). Conflict and closeness in the early teacher-child relationship: The relative importance of predictors at child and classroom level. In K. Verschueren (Chair), Antecedents of the early teacher-child relationship. Symposium conducted at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA.

Cassidy, J. (2008). The nature of the child's ties. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research and clinical applications (pp. 3-22). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Elfer, P., & Dearnley, K. (2007). Nurseries and emotional well being: Evaluating an emotionally containing model of continuing professional development. Early Years: An International Journal of Research and Development, 27(3), 267-279.

Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin, 51, 327-358. Goldstein, L. S. (1999). The relational zone: The role of caring relationships in the co-construction of mind. American Educational Research Journal, 36, 647-673.

Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2001). Early teacher-child relationships and the trajectory of children's school outcomes through eighth grade. Child Development, 72, 625-638.

Hinde, R. A. (1979). Towards understanding relationships. London, England: Academic Press.

Howes, C. (1999). Attachment relationships in the context of multiple caregivers. In J. Cassidy & P. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment. Theory, research and clinical applications (pp. 671-687). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

Katz, L. (2000, May). Parenting and teaching in perspective. Paper presented at the Parent Child 2000 Conference, London, England.

Kuczynski, L., & Daly, K. (2003). Qualitative methods for inductive (theory-generating) research. In L. Kuczynski (Ed.), Handbook of dynamics in parent-child relations (pp. 373-392). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Kuczynski, L., & Parkin, M. (2009). Pursuing a dialectical perspective on transaction: A social relational theory of micro family processes. In A. Sameroff (Ed.), Transactional processes in development (pp. 247-268). Washington, DC: APA Books.

Kuczynski, L., Pitman, R., & Mitchell, M. B. (2009). Dialectics and transactional models: Conceptualizing antecedents, processes, and consequences of change in parent-child relationships. In J. Mancini & K. Roberto (Eds.), Pathways of development: Explorations of change (pp. 151-170). Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Lollis, S., & Kuczynski, L. (1997). Beyond one hand clapping: Seeing bidirectionality in parent-child relations. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 14, 441-461.

Manning-Morton, J. (2006). The personal is professional: Professionalism and the birth to threes practitioner. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 7, 42-52.

Marshall, S. K., & Lambert, J. D. (2006). Parental mattering: A qualitative inquiry into the tendency to evaluate the self as significant to one's children. Journal of Family Issues, 27, 1561-1582.

McCracken, G. (1988). The long interview: Qualitative research methods (Vol. 13). Newbury Park, CA: Sage. McGuire, T., Dougherty, D. S., & Atkinson, J. (2006). Paradoxing the dialectic: The impact of patients' sexual harassment in the discursive construction of nurses' caregiving roles. Management Communication Quarterly, 19, 416-450.

Noble, K., & MacFarlane, K. (2005). Romance or reality? Examining burnout in early childhood teachers. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 30, 53-58.

Oliphant, A. E., & Kuczynski, L. (2011). Mothers' and fathers' perceptions of mutuality in middle childhood: The domain of intimacy. Journal of Family Issues, 32, 1104-1124. doi: 10.1177/0192513X11402946

Parks, M. R. (1997). Communication networks and relationship life cycle. In S. Duck (Ed.), Handbook of personal relationships: Theory, research and intervention (2nd ed., pp. 351-372). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Pianta, R. C. (2006). Classroom management and relationships between children and teachers: Implications for research and practice. In C. M. Evertson & C. S. Weinstein (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management: Research, practice and contemporary issues (pp. 685-731). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Pianta, R. C., & Stuhlman, M. (2004). Teacher-child relationships and children's success in the first years of school. School Psychology Review, 33, 444-458.

Quan-McGimpsey, S., Kuczynski, L., & Brophy, K. (2011). Early education teachers' conceptualizations and strategies for managing closeness in child care: The personal domain. Early Childhood Research Journal, 9, 232-246. doi:10.1177/1476718X10389146

Seale, C. (1999). The quality of qualitative research. London, England: Sage.

Sumsion, J. (2003). Rereading metaphors as cultural texts: A case of early childhood teacher attrition. Australian Educational Researcher, 30, 67-88.

Thijs, J. T., Koomen, H. M. Y., & van der Leij, A. (2008). Teacher-child relationships and pedagogical practices: Considering the teacher's perspective. School Psychology Review, 37, 244-260.

Weingarten, K. (1992). A consideration of intimate and non-intimate interactions in therapy. Family Process, 31, 45-59. Zhang, J. H. (2007). Of mothers and teachers: Roles in a pedagogy of caring. Journal of Moral Education, 36, 515-552.

<ADD> Sharon Quan-McGimpsey Seneca College of Applied Arts & Technology, King City, Canada Leon Kuczynski and Kathleen Brophy University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada </ADD>

Submitted March 9, 2011; accepted July 26, 2011.

Address correspondence to Sharon Quan-McGimpsey, School of Early Childhood Education, Seneca College of Applied Arts & Technology, 13990 Dufferin Street, King City, ON L7B 1B3, Canada. E-mail: sharon. quan-mcgimpsey@senecac.on.ca