It is often stated that teaching is a job requiring great “emotional labor” (Hargreaves, 2001). However, surprisingly little is known about how teachers’ emotional experiences relate to their teaching practices, how they regulate their emotions, their relationships with students or how important teachers’ emotional experiences are to students’ behavior (Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). Factors which could help to explain competent teacher behavior and positive classroom outcomes overlap with the concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI), which refers to the perception of emotions, use of emotions to facilitate thinking, understanding of emotions and management of emotions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Teachers’ perceived EI has been found to be important in establishing better working relationships with students, and negatively related to students’ misconduct (Brackett, Reyes, Rivers, Elbertson, & Salovey 2011; Nizielski, Hallum, Lopes, & Schutz, 2012).

EI has also been useful in explaining individual differences in teachers’ Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), the process of acquiring skills in recognizing and managing emotions, developing care and concern for others, making responsible decisions, establishing positive relationships and handling challenging situations effectively (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Socially and emotionally competent teachers set the tone of the classroom by developing supportive relationships with their students and coaching students through conflict situations (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009).

Teachers’ emotional support is a protective factor for the relational functioning of students at risk of emotional and behavioral difficulties (Buyse, Verschueren, Doumen, Damme, & Maes, 2008), while conflict in teacher-student relationships has the potential to strengthen behavior problems (Silver, Measelle, Armostrong, & Essex, 2005). However, the plethora of research emphasizing the importance of teacher-student relationships and their interconnection to students’ behavioral challenges at schools, does not take into account teachers’ perceptions of their own social and emotional abilities, their competence to implement SEL in their classrooms, and the way these teacher factors influence classroom interactions and students’ behavior. Teachers can teach children to relieve stress, manage anger and deal with social interactions, as well as fostering a sense of safety and well-being in children. This assumes however that teachers are already socially and emotionally skilled and also feel competent implementing SEL with their students, particularly with students with emotional and behavioral difficulties. In the current study we explored teachers’ perceptions of their EI, competence in teaching social and emotional skills to their students and teacher-student relationships, in an attempt to interpret students’ emotional and behavioral difficulties in elementary classrooms.

Objectives of the study   

The aim of the current study was to investigate how teachers’ perceptions of their EI and competence in implementing SEL, influence their perceptions of teacher-student relationships and students’ emotional and behavioral difficulties. We hypothesized that teachers with higher EI and SEL would report closer relationships with students, and would be less likely to report emotional and behavioral difficulties to their students.

As findings based solely on teacher self-reports may suffer from bias (Wubbels, Brekelmans, & Hooymayers, 1992), we also drew on students’ perceptions of their behavior difficulties. We explored whether teachers’ perceptions of EI, competence to implement SEL with their students and teacher-student relationships have an additional, independent contribution to our understanding of students' behavior, according to students themselves. Based on similarity with teachers’ based studies, we hypothesized that students would report less behavior problems with teachers high in EI, SEL implementation and positive teacher-student relationships. At the same time, based on the research findings up to date, we would expect minimal agreement between teacher and students’ perceptions of students’ behavior difficulties.

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