Session Information
05 SES 03 A, (Developing) Support Systems for Children and Youth at Risk
Paper Session
Contribution
As displayed by my presentation at ECER 2014, the teacher-student-relationship is severely affected by the traumatic experiences which students endured during their childhood or adolescence (Zimmermann, 2015). In most cases, traumatized students and their teachers are heavily emotionally involved when interacting. Professionals often feel overchallenged when trying to keep track with the requirements theses students bring to their classrooms. Induced by extremely negative experiences with adults, traumatized children and adolescents raise existential questions regarding the stability of the new relationship. These questions are usually not verbally asked but by use of maladjusted behavior. Therefore, on a theoretical layer, trauma can be understood as a long-lasting disturbance of relationship (Brothers, 2014). This is especially true for the teacher-student-relationship as powerful transference-countertransference-processes show their full effects here (Weiss, 2002). International studies verify that this phenomenon does not primarily depend on different national school systems but can be generalized for all European countries and beyond (Freyberg & Wolff, 2005; McInnes, Diamond, & Whitington, 2014; Solomon & Thomas, 2013). It is supposed that traumatized students learn in all school types; therefore coping with these challenges is a developmental issue for all teachers.
This is to say, teachers need particular competences to reflect, to understand and to react to the questions that traumatized students raise. Research on trauma-focused education has been intensive during the last two decades (especially in the U.S., in Australia and in Germany), but above all it is activity-oriented (Blaustein, 2013; Hertel & Johnson, 2013). The best practice models presented in the according papers are of limited effectivity for the reality of severely burdened students and their teachers as most of them do not sufficiently take into account the power of traumatic emotions on students’ and teachers’ side.
Further on, there is numerous research on teachers’ competences and their impacts on classroom performance, including international comparative meta-analyses (Hattie, 2012). Anyway, down to the present day, there is not enough knowledge on teachers’ emotional competences and their impacts on relationships with the students, especially on the balance of holding and demanding as a core principal of trauma focused work (Gerspach, 2002; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). In Germany, there is a profound scientific tradition of psychoanalytic education but its effects are hardly considered.
Therefore, it can be argued that trauma- and relationship-focused trainings with special regard to emotions are a very important aspect of professionalization in this field. The measurement of effects of teachers’ trainings is a substantial contribution to the advancement of theory and practice of trauma focused education, too. Assuming that a positive outcome for professionals’ relationship competences could be worked out, this would also hint to specific requirements for teachers’ training on a larger scale. Taking into account that teachers' re-qualifications are to be adapted to the requirements of inclusive education in allmost all European countries qualitative research is of outstanding importance to ensure an ongoing improvement.
To sum up: This paper focuses on a key question of pedagogical professionalization: Do trauma-focused (and psychoanalysis-based) trainings have an influence on the teachers’ subjective competences when working with traumatized children? Two of the subsidiary questions are:
Do teachers experience a subjective change in the work with traumatized students, especially regarding their feeling of self-efficacy?
Is there a change regarding teachers’ attitude and acting in the classroom, especially when being confronted with difficult behavior or conflicts induced by traumatic experience?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Blaustein, M. (2013). Childhood Trauma and a Framework for Intervention. In E. Rossen & R. Hull (Eds.), Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students. A Guide for School-Based Professionals (pp. 3–22). New York: Oxford Univ. Press. Brothers, D. (2014). Traumatic Attachments: Intergenerational Trauma, Dissociation, and the Analytic Relationship. International Journal of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology, 9(1), 3–15. Calderon Gómez. C. (2009). Assessing the Quality of Qualitative Health Research: Criteria, Process and Writing. Forum qualitative research, 10. Freyberg, T. von & Wolff, A. (2005). Störer und Gestörte. Band 1: Konfliktgeschichten nicht beschulbarer Jugendlicher. Frankfurt /M.: Brandes & Apsel. Gerspach, M. (Ed.). (2002). Zur Relevanz des Dialogs in Erziehungswissenschaft, Behindertenpädagogik, Beratung und Therapie. Der Beitrag der Psychoanalyse zum Dialog. Münster: Lit. Hattie, J. (2012). Visible Learning for Teachers. New York: Routledge. Hertel, R. & Johnson, M. M. (Eds.). (2013). Supporting and Education Traumatized Students. A Guide for School- Based Professionals. How the Traumatic Experiences of Students Manifest in School Settings. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. Jennings, P. A. & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). The Prosocial Classroom: Teacher Social and Emotional Competence in Relation to Student and Classroom Outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 491–525. Larsen, T. & Samdal, O. (2012). The importance of teachers' feelings of self efficacy in developing their pupils' social and emotional learning: A Norwegian study of teachers' reactions to the Second Step program. School Psychology International, 33(6), 631–645. Lazar, R. A. (2000). Erforschen und Erfahren: Teilenhmende Säuglingsbeobachtung. "Emphatietraining" oder empirische Forschungsmethode. Analytische Kinder- und Jugendlichen- Psychotherapie, 31, 399–417. McInnes, E., Diamond, A., & Whitington, V. (Eds.). (2014). How Trauma Resonates: Art, Literature and Theoretical Practice. Developing Trauma- Informed Pedagogy in a Year 2-3 Classroom. Oxford UK: Inter- Disciplinary Press. Schwarzer, R. & Jerusalem, M. (2002). Konzept der Selbstwirksamkeit. Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, 44, 28–53. Solomon, M. & Thomas, G. (2013). Supporting behavior support: developing a model for leading and managing a unit for teenagers excluded from mainstream schools. Emotional and behavioral difficulties, 18, 44–59. Ullrich, F. & Zimmermann, D. (2014). Gewalt und Vernachlässigung. Belastungen, die Unterricht unmöglich machen? ZfH, (65), 257–266. Weiss, S. (2002). How teachers' autobiographies influence their responses to children's behaviors. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 7(1), 9–18. Zimmermann, D. (2015). Traumatized Students in the Classroom – A Pedagogical View of Traumatic Experiences and Their Influences on the Interactions at School. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 20, submitted.
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