International Journal of Adolescence and Youth

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The teacher–student relationship and adolescents’

sense of school belonging

Ali Ibrahim & Wafaa El Zaatari

To cite this article: Ali Ibrahim & Wafaa El Zaatari (2020) The teacher–student relationship and
adolescents’ sense of school belonging, International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 25:1,
382-395, DOI: 10.1080/02673843.2019.1660998

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2019.1660998

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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH
2020, VOL. 25, NO. 1, 382–395
https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2019.1660998

The teacher–student relationship and adolescents’ sense of

school belonging
Ali Ibrahim and Wafaa El Zaatari
Foundations of Education Department, UAE University, Al Ain, UAE

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In adolescence, humans begin to establish their adult identities. Their Received 8 July 2019
teachers are important in this development, but increasing work and Accepted 25 August 2019
accountability demands on teachers mean teacher–student relations suffer, KEYWORDS
negatively impacting adolescents’ sense of school belonging and beha- School belonging; teacher–
vioural, psychological, and academic development. We used ecological student relationship; school
systems theory to study affect, power, and reciprocity dimensions of the accountability; adolescents;
student–teacher relationship at school level in the United Arab Emirates. UAE
Observations and semi-structured interviews with female eleventh-graders
and their teachers showed that adolescents believed teachers tried their
best, but their lecture-based teaching style was boring, and that teachers
rarely engaged students in group work or considered their opinions.
Additionally, not all teachers supported or respected students. Teacher–
student power imbalance exacerbated these issues and led students to
disobey or skip classes. Relationships based on care, trust, respect, affect,
openness, and cooperation can foster student achievement, identity devel-
opment, and school belonging and teacher accountability.

Introduction
School belonging is the ‘extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included, and
supported by others in the school social environment’ (Goodenow, 1993b, p. 80). It is a psychological
feeling of attachment that makes students want to go to school every day. It is influenced by many factors,
teacher–student relationships foremost (Uslu & Gizir, 2017). School belonging is strongly correlated to other
consequential dimensions of students’ identities and behaviours: social and emotional well-being and self-
esteem (Farrelly, 2013), respecting school rules (Dehuff, 2013), less violence (Aliyev & Tunc, 2015), and
decreased dropout (Goodenow, 1993b), though not academic achievement (Farrelly, 2013).
Nowadays, schools are increasingly driven by achievement and standardized assessments
rather than learning per se, and by external accountability rather than internal responsibility
(Sahlberg, 2010). In such a climate, teachers become overwhelmed by the task of ‘teaching to
the indicators’ and neglect their core business: fostering learning, getting to know their
students, and forming relationships with them (Ritt, 2016). Such an environment nurtures
negativity and fragmentation, as teachers adopt negative attitudes towards their jobs and
feel dispirited and demoralized (Bradford & Braaten, 2018), while students, left behind, become
alienated, disengaged, and lose sight of their aims (Goodenow, 1993b). Therefore, the purpose
of this case study is to explore the nature of teacher–student relationship in the school
microsystem and its impact on students’ sense of school belonging.

CONTACT Ali Ibrahim ali_saidebrahim@uaeu.ac.ae

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH 383

Theoretical framework
Bronfenbrenner (1979) explains that development occurs because of the interplay between
the developing person and the environment. As shown in Figure 1, the ecological environ-
ment is a set of nested structures (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem).
The developing individual is situated at the microsystem level, affected from early age to
adolescence by two main, comprehensive environments: the family home and school. The
school context entails reciprocal interactions with friends and classmates, and teachers.
Establishing a relation between individuals creates a dyad, and the dyad between teacher
and student is crucial for child development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p. 56). According to the
theory, ‘a powerful and positive relationship may have the power to overcome the impacts
of even the most damaging environment, and even a positive environment may be insuffi-
cient to support positive development in the absence of warm and loving relationships’
(Hayes, O’Toole, & Halpenny, 2017, p. 44). The teacher–student relationship is constructed by
their respective actions and can be altered by change in either party’s behaviour (Shelton,
2019, p. 29).
Bronfenbrenner identified three characteristics of relationships: affect, one’s feelings towards
the other; power, the influence or control one has over the other; and reciprocity, the
coordination of activities in relation to the other (1979, pp. 57–58). School belonging depends
on what kind of relationships students engage in, which depends in turn on differences in
affect, power, and reciprocity, conceived over continua: affect, from negative to neutral to
positive; power, held in different degrees by the teacher or student or shared; and reciprocity,
from complete to none (Shelton, 2019, pp. 34–35). Moreover, ‘the developmental impact of
a dyad increases as a direct function of the level of reciprocity, mutuality of positive feeling,
and a gradual shift of balance of power in favour of the developing person’ (Bronfenbrenner,
1979, p. 59); as the teacher has positive affect towards the student, shares power, and
provides reciprocity, student engagement in the relationship and hence student development
occurs. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 1. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory (1979).

384 A. IBRAHIM AND W. EL ZAATARI

Negative relationship Positive relationship

Negative affect Positive affect

Hatred, negativity, Love, care, respect,
disrespect positivity

No reciprocity Complete reciprocity

No response to initiatives Mutuality, sharing
of the other party immediate response

All power retained by Most power granted to

teachers students

No or low sense of school High sense of school

belonging belonging

Figure 2. The three dimensions of the relational continuum and sense of belonging.

Relevant literature
Students’ sense of school belonging is their ‘perceptions of being involved, recognized and
supported’ in the school context (Qin & Wan, 2015, p. 830). Need for belonging increases as
students reach the sensitive adolescent stage (Miller & Desberg, 2009). School belonging helps
students maintain emotional stability, enjoy their learning experiences, develop optimistic attitudes
towards learning, and attach to peers who share a similar stable and positive spirit. They are
happier and more satisfied, and subsequently their academic achievement and motivation might
increase (Fong Lam, Chen, Zhang, & Liang, 2015; Sánchez, Colón, & Esparza, 2005). On the other
hand, if students do not develop a sense of belonging, they could feel rejected, unsupported,
helpless, and fatigued. Their level of acquaintance with teachers and peers can decrease, which
may in turn lead them to develop low personal agency, contributing to a decline in student
engagement and academic achievement (Fong Lam et al., 2015).
The teacher–student relationship is the most important relationship in the school context, and
its nature should be highly affective, democratic, and supportive. Students’ sense of well-being
and their happiness with the relationship are vital for developing their positive identities
(Chhuon & Wallace, 2014). Rich and Schachter (2012) state that ‘teacher caring, teachers as
a role model and a school program that cultivates the whole students rather than just academic
learning’ (p. 219) are the most important school features for the development of adolescents’
identity and self-concept, which in turn can promote positive development and positive future
behaviours and choices (Smith, 2015). Therefore, teachers need to pursue constructive interac-
tion and show interest in knowing about students’ lives and future plans, instead of only
attending to teaching per se. Teachers’ support has greater influence on female adolescents’
motivation and participation than on boys’ (Chhuon & Wallace, 2014); and the more support
female adolescents receive, the more classroom belonging influences their prospects of success
(Goodenow, 1993a).
The American Psychological Association (2002) indicated that teachers can enhance moral develop-
ment and reasoning in adolescents by selecting teaching methods that incorporate democratic con-
versation, encourage experimentation, stimulate students to express themselves, and persuade them to
face problems and resolve conflicts, in a friendly environment. Cooper (2014) added that teachers need to
choose activities that empower students to think about connecting their ideas and beliefs to their
classroom experiences, and Wallace, Ye, and Chhuon (2012) found that when students think teachers
are there only to teach mechanically, without connecting to students’ needs and interests, they partici-
pate less in classroom activities. Teachers should also manage students’ misbehaviour to prevent
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH 385

disruption of the pace of learning. They should state classroom rules very clearly, set expectations, be
consistent, eliminate exceptions, and inform students of the consequences of not meeting expectations
(see Hamm, Farmer, Dadisman, Gravelle, & Murray, 2011; Miller & Desberg, 2009).

Statement of the problem

The United Arab Emirates National Agenda identifies education as a major priority (UAE
Cabinet, n.d.), setting the objective of being among the 15 top countries on the TIMSS exam
and the 20 top countries on the PISA exam. This requires a complete transformation of the
education system: management, curricula, and teaching methods, which is already occurring.
Teachers have to focus on delivering international-assessment-oriented curriculum to fulfil
lesson objectives, limiting available time to interact with students and address their academic
and non-academic challenges. Johnson (2009) argues that schools that concentrate on aca-
demic achievement more than adolescent students’ developmental needs and social relations
inhibit students’ school relatedness. Indeed, TIMSS (2015) showed that only 21% of Abu Dhabi
students had high school belonging, compared to 44% internationally. Russell, Coughlin, El
Walily, and Al Amri (2005) showed that students feel pressure to fulfil academic requirements,
further impacting their time to socialize with peers, teachers, administrators, and coaches and
their involvement in extracurricular activities. Thus, Yang et al. (2016) recommend that Abu
Dhabi schools must focus more on ‘improving the social relationship at school’ (p. 14).
This study explores teacher–high school student relationships in one UAE school district from
students’ and teachers’ own perspectives and how these relationships influence adolescents’ sense
of school belonging. The research questions were:

(1) How do teachers and students perceive the quality of their relationship at school?
(2) How does the teacher–student relationship influence students’ sense of school belonging?

Significance of the study

UAE adolescents’ views of their school experience have received very little attention. This study gathers
their perceptions, providing educators with evidence of the importance of affect, power relations, and
reciprocal interactions between teachers and students, and, for school administrators and policy-
makers, of the need to decrease teachers’ workload to provide them with the time needed to develop
their relationships with students and care for students’ academic and developmental needs.

Methods
Setting
The research setting for this case study is a public female-only secondary school in a major UAE
city, with approximately 650 students; most are UAE citizens. They are taught by 65 Emirati and
non-Emirati teachers.

Research design
A single-case-study research design was used. This qualitative approach explores different per-
spectives on an issue of concern – here, the influence of teacher–student relationships on
adolescents’ sense of school belonging. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with both
teachers and students, along with general school observations.
386 A. IBRAHIM AND W. EL ZAATARI

Participants
According to Creswell (2012), ‘purposeful sampling is used in qualitative research . . . [where] the
inquirer selects individuals and sites for study because they can purposefully inform an under-
standing of the research problem and central phenomenon in the study’ (p. 156). The participants
in this study are eleven female Emirati eleventh-graders and six of their teachers, also female. The
school was purposively selected for proximity and convenience, and participants were selected for
willingness to sit for interviews and share their experiences.
Before the interview, participants were informed of the study’s purpose and their rights of
voluntary participation and right to withdraw. They had the chance to ask questions. Permission
was obtained to audio-record the interview, and confidentiality and anonymity were assured.

Instruments
The semi-structured interview protocol used five questions for teachers and five for students to
help answer the research questions. As Kvale (2007) notes, in semi-structured interviews there is
flexibility to change the order and type of questions in accordance with interviewees’ responses.
The questions were open ended and general, but centred on the influence of teacher–student
relationships on adolescents’ sense of school belonging.

Data analysis
After collection of the students’ and teachers’ interview data, they were transcribed into Word files,
which were imported into NVivo and arranged for analysis. Nodes and child nodes were created
during the first reading of each transcript. To ensure inter-rater reliability, the two researchers
separately read the nodes, gathered them into themes, and made a decision on whether they were
significant or not; then, they shared their decisions and agreed on the final themes. The research-
ers’ observations of the school and interactions were added to the interview data as supporting
evidence.

Limitations of the study

This paper discusses only one public school for girls in one city in the UAE; the results cannot be
generalized to all UAE schools, to private schools, to male students, or internationally. The inter-
views are self-reported and can pose another limitation to the study.

Findings
Initial observations
Most students looked happy socializing in pairs or groups on the playground. Most teachers were
trying to get students to class to start their lessons. Classroom doors were closed, and teachers
could be heard scolding and shouting at students when we passed them in the hallways. In
between lessons, many students were chatting and shouting. In classrooms, students rarely
showed interest in the subject being taught. Some students were sleepy or looked bored; others
were chatting. Very few were concentrating on the material or interacting with teachers. School
social workers were busy dealing with problem students referred to them by teachers.

Interview results
The results describe students’ and teachers’ perspectives on their relationships, and students’
attachment to the school, teachers, and peers. Based on data analysis, perspectives were organized
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH 387

into five themes (presented in this order below): rigid classrooms, interpersonal communication, lack
of effective support, punishment, and relationships with friends or peers.

Rigid classrooms
School X presents a rigid classroom environment. This section will elaborate on three facets of this
rigidity: boring classroom environment, limited participation in decisions, and teaching to the test.

Boring classroom environment

According to students, the classroom environment is not conducive to learning. Students are
disturbed and lose concentration because the classroom ‘is so noisy’, as students S1, S7, and S8
indicated. Furthermore, S3, S5, S8, S9, and S11 are bored by the ‘same way of teaching . . . [and]
want more activities.’ Even if ‘teachers notice that [students] sometimes feel bored, they complete
the class without doing anything. Actually, they don’t care about [students’] boredom, the only
thing they care for is to finish the class and the assigned curriculum’, as S5 confided.
Teachers also expressed challenges they face with these students. They find it difficult to ‘reach
each student,’ ‘teach students who feel that there is no point to study,’ ‘teach students who are too
tired because they only stopped playing on their phones at 4:00 am,’ or (for an English teacher)
‘teach a class where the students are at 5 different English levels’ (T1).
T5 revealed that ‘the Ministry of Education works on pushing teachers to use different activities,
group work, story-telling, and learning through fun and experience’. However, said T4, ‘teachers in
this school depend totally on copying and pasting information just only for memorization instead
of developing creativity in the classrooms, and thus students are tested based on their abilities to
memorize’. The reason behind this, as explained by T5, is ‘time limitation’. T5 was disturbed by the
lack of autonomy in classroom practices, and noted that ‘the teacher’s personality and methodol-
ogy is being ignored. The teacher should be dealt with as a productive, creative, and useful
contributor in the learning process, and not like a robot that [uncritically] follows new decisions’.

Limited participation in decisions

In school X, decisions about classroom instruction were undemocratic. All student participants
except S3 mentioned being excluded from decisions related to classroom instruction such as
working in groups or in pairs. S1 said, ‘Most teachers order us and we have to obey without any
kind of negotiation’. S10 added, ‘We don’t have the right to share in decisions that are related to
classroom instruction’. The only decision teachers share with students with is ‘. . . the times and
dates of the exams, especially if there are more than one exam in a day . . .’ (S6).
Although T1, T2, T3, T4, and T6 indicated that they involve students in decision-making, contrary
to students’ opinions, T5 acknowledged that:
Sometimes you do not have to involve them in decision making . . . because the students will decide to do
nothing, ultimately. They will usually choose the least challenging, and that is a problem. You want them to be
independent and to be a part of the learning-teaching process, but they do not know what they want. It is
because we thought they know what they want [that] we lost a lot.

Teaching to the test

Students were not always negative about their teachers. They mentioned that some teachers were
dedicated and tried their best to help students improve and overcome their weaknesses. One way
teachers did that was, as S2 mentioned, by ‘gather[ing] weak students and let another teacher teach
them extra classes to facilitate their learning’. Alongside this caring practice by some teachers, however,
some students perceived that other teachers did not care about students’ learning. S3 explained that
‘most teachers use the same style of teaching for all students whether the students understand the
subject or not’. Furthermore, S4, S5, S6, S7, and S11 were upset because they felt teachers did not show
388 A. IBRAHIM AND W. EL ZAATARI

that they cared about students’ learning. ‘Some teachers don’t care [even if they] notice that we don’t
understand . . .’ (S7).
The generally rigid classroom atmosphere and hurried pace of teaching to the exam seemed to
affect teachers’ psychology. Students noticed that ‘teachers are under pressure’ (S1, S7, S9, S11) to ‘finish
the curriculum’ (S1, S2, S3, S5, S7, S9, and S11) and that this made teachers ‘feel stressed and anxious’. As
S1 put it, ‘their aim [for us] is just to be prepared for the tests, and to score well’. A heavy teaching load
results in ‘many students not getting the needed attention for their development and success’, (T2)
which hampers the teacher–student relationship. Teachers largely agreed; as (T3) expressed,
We have a lot of work, we are always under stress, we have to teach, write exams, correct exams, make tours
around class, supervise particular classes, design activities, and others. Teachers here always face stress, and
this kind of environment is demotivating to us.

Impersonal communication
Teachers and students presented different views of the communication that happens in the class-
room. Students perceived teachers as oftentimes uncaring, harsh, and sometimes cynical, while
teachers thought they mostly adopted a caring approach, and some teachers perceived students as
lacking social skills such as discipline. While some students said that some teachers have ‘very
respectful’ attitudes (S2, S3, and S5), the majority agreed that teachers lack communication skills,
are unprofessional in dealing with them, and show disrespectful and sometimes degrading beha-
viours. Students mentioned that teachers’ way of communication is ‘the worst thing that annoys [the
student interviewee]’ (S1) and ‘is offensive, and makes [them] nervous’ (S2, S3). This issue worsens
when students ‘commit mistakes’ (S1). Teachers use to embarrass students; as S4 mentioned, ‘. . . [one
teacher] said to me that she didn’t know how I passed and succeeded. This is only because I asked her
about a point that I did not understand’. Similarly, S8 described teachers’ way of dealing with them as
‘very provocative, as one teacher told a student that she deserves repeating grade 11. Teachers don’t
even think how to understand [students].’ S9 added, ‘Some teachers use a sarcastic way to talk to
students. This triggers us to disobey them. They do not respect us or show care’. The way teachers talk
to students was perceived as a reason why students dislike school and skip classes, ‘Some teachers
make us hate the school’ (S2), or at least dislike attending ‘most of the sessions’ (S10). Students hope
that ‘teachers [can] change their behaviours’ (S9).
In contrast to the unfortunate picture given by students, teachers stated that they respect and
communicate well with students. For example, T4 mentioned that she ‘communicates and deals with
them like an old sister’, continuing, ‘many students have problems, so we have to reach out for them
and give them a chance to talk about their needs’. Talking with confidence, T5 stated, ‘students know
they can come to us at any time because . . . we listen to them, they know there will be no barrier
between us, so we have open communication whether it is about social issues or academics’.
While the teachers presented themselves as being caring towards students, T5 admitted that
teachers ‘shout tremendously at students because they are constantly out in the hallways and they
need to get them back to classes’. T5 went further, talking about the power relations between
teachers and students. She believes that students have more power,
Students can make you lose your job. You know there is always that fear hanging over all teachers. Students
have the power and you have to constantly incorporate with them. That is how you survive the system. So, all
teachers must do that on the least level, just to keep their jobs.

Lack of effective support

The findings indicate that teachers try to reinforce and support students, but that as they need to
focus on teaching and achieving good standardized results, they might not attend to students’
motivation and reinforcement. Some students declared that the school usually ‘appreciates
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH 389

students who excel or do outstanding jobs during the morning assembly’ (S10) and ‘a few teachers
reinforce students by carrying out competitions and giving awards’ (S5). However, students also
think that ‘most teachers do not care’ (S9). S1 explained that students miss ‘the psychological
support’ since ‘there is no attention’ and the ‘teachers’ main focus is how to finish the curriculum’.
S3 explained that ‘teachers don’t motivate’ them because of ‘the stress they encounter due to the
current changes’ and ‘the length of the curriculum.’ Moreover, S4 stated, ‘teachers are just focusing
on teaching, testing, posting grades and going back to their homes’. Students do not feel teachers
are close to them, ‘I want teachers to be closer to us, understand us, support us, and try to help us
in solving our problems’ (S4). They want ‘teachers to be like [their] friends’ (S9).
Teachers used various types of support with students, but it seems that this support has not
been felt by students. T3 said, ‘I praise my students verbally’ and ‘those who are well-mannered
and respectful, I appreciate them, praise them in front of the school, and give them certificates.’ But
beyond such reinforcement, they said, students needed more support; as T4 put it, ‘We have to
support them psychologically and academically. However, when we come to our classes, I try to
control them to focus on the lesson and forget anything that may affect their understanding of the
content area.’ Therefore, teachers and students agreed that the school system, which focuses on
instruction and exams, does not support the creation of a caring and trustful relationship that
should happen, although teachers understand their duty to students of this age: ‘they are teen-
agers, they want to talk about what happens in their lives, they have been waiting 12 hours to talk
to you; so, you know these are the challenges as a teacher that you will be facing.’ (T5)

Discipline and punishment do not help

Enforcing discipline, sometimes punishment, was another topic of disagreement between students and
teachers. Students complained about being punished by teachers, and said that whatever the type of
punishment, it did not serve its aim, but shook their self-esteem and was devastating to their personalities.
Teachers generally punished students by asking them to ‘stand at the back of the class for the whole
period [or part of it] or during the break’ (S2), or ‘by deducting marks from a student’s discipline marks’ (S4).
Discipline marks are a recent addition to the UAE school system, with the aim of enforcing discipline in
schools; they provide some portion of a student’s total grade. Students indicated that teachers consider
punishment as a means to instate morals and to teach students the oughts and ought nots, but that they
do not necessarily serve this purpose well, as teachers ‘may succeed in controlling us, but they will not help
us or guide our behaviours in a moral way’ (S1). It seems that excessive use of punishment or discipline
makes some students ‘[not] feel safe with teachers’ or at school.
While students were against using punishment, teachers had no problem with it: ‘there are
some students who are really trouble makers, and they don’t listen to you’ (T3); ‘I am really
disappointed and sad about this generation’ (T3). T5 was disappointed by the lack of discipline
and the chaotic and noisy classrooms. Punishment at this school can include ‘deducting marks,
time out, or keeping the student in class during break’ (T1). Teachers expressed that making
contact with parents is difficult, as some of them do not respond: ‘For trouble makers, the only
way to deal with them is by contacting their parents who mostly don’t respond, so I revert to the
social worker, or deduct marks, as behaviour must be graded’. Deducting marks seemed to work
with some students, ‘but there are some students who are careless, and they don’t care about their
grades’ (T3). Other types of punishment used were ‘to ask students to clean the class’ (T4) or
‘ignoring students, not looking at them or engaging them in class discussion and activities’ (T5).

Friends at school boost students’ feeling of belonging

Students came up with several reasons to justify their lack of desire to go to school: ‘studying’, ‘exams’,
‘restrictive rules’ (S3), ‘the system’, ‘getting up early’, ‘the administration’ (S6), ‘curriculum’ (S7, S8),
‘problems between peers’ (S10), and the ‘way some teachers deal with [them]’ (S2, S6, S7, S8, S10). All
390 A. IBRAHIM AND W. EL ZAATARI

these factors influenced students’ view of their school. For example, S6 expressed that ‘my school is not
a place for learning, it is a place where we are suffering psychologically. I do not feel that I belong to this
place’. T3 acknowledged that the school environment demotivated students:
because of the huge requirements related to the curriculum, exams, reports, and projects, we feel that they are
under pressure. The number of classes per day is around nine; they don’t have enough time for activities.

On the other hand, socializing with friends is a major reason for students’ interest in going to
school. Students like to socialize with their peers to ‘create new social relationships’ and to ‘share
ideas’ (S7). S5 explained, ‘If I have any problem, I can share with my friends. They understand me
and they are close to me.’ Therefore, the presence of friends makes students ‘feel happy’ (S7) and
‘connected to school’ (S8, S9, S11).
Teachers are aware that students like to come to school ‘to socialize with their friends’ (T1, T2,
T3, T5, T6). T6 indicated that ‘sometimes it is the only way for them to socialize, as their parents
might be conservative and do not allow them to see their school friends outside school’. Some
teachers believe that coming to school and meeting friends helps some students ‘to get rid of their
house routines’ (T3), but the general agreement was that emotional ‘belonging to the school is
based on the friendships they have’ (T2, T5).

Discussion and implications

To better understand the various circumstances that might have played a role in influencing the
teacher–student relationship in the school, we applied Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological system
theory to the school system. Following the theory, we argue that the macrosystem is the overall
strategic direction of education in the country; in the UAE, education is driven by the National
Agenda 2021, which set ambitious goals for the country and students in terms of international
performance rankings. The exosystem includes the many policy changes and initiatives implemen-
ted to achieve these goals. At the microsystem level, we can find the mandated curriculum changes
and student learning outcomes along with the need for a large amount of reporting on students’
achievement which seem to have influenced the relationship between students and teachers.
This case study aimed at exploring the nature of teacher–student relationship in the school
microsystem and its impact on students’ sense of school belonging. A positive teacher–student
relationship enhances students’ development and supports their sense of belonging to the school
and its community. A positive relationship requires, as Figure 2 shows, three main components:
positive affect, balanced power, and complete reciprocity. The opposite is also true: when the
relationship is described as being negative, this means that the affect is negative, power is not
balanced, and reciprocity mostly does not exist (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The findings of this case
study revealed that teachers and students contributed to destabilizing their dyadic relationships by
holding on to counterproductive behaviours and practices. This, in turn, negatively influenced
students’ sense of school belonging and led teachers and students to feel threatened by the
relationship. We will discuss teachers’ and students’ behaviours and practices in terms of the three
dimensions of the relationship: reciprocity, affect, and power.
Reciprocity refers to the cooperation that should exist in a relationship while its members –
here, teachers and students – work together on a certain activity. The findings revealed that an
acceptable level of reciprocity was not attained in most cases. Coordination was lacking, since the
two parties were coming from different mind-sets and had different aims. It seemed to us that the
pressure teachers were under to fulfil the target curricular objectives and make sure that students
pass the tests at a level acceptable to the state and their parents was disruptive and detrimental to
the teachers’ practice and ability to connect with their students.
Narrowing down the focus to the technical side of teaching and excluding the opportunity to
foster the human relationship between teachers and students, we argue, resulted in less coopera-
tion on important tasks and activities through which adolescents can build their identities and
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH 391

grow into adults. Preparation for exams took away precious time needed for students’ emotional
and interpersonal growth. Teachers were not able to apply their full potential as practitioners
(Brockmeier, Green, Pate, Tsemunhu, & Bochenko, 2014), as they found themselves forced to cope
with heavy curriculum demands. In situations where teachers feel pressured and overwhelmed,
they develop stress and anxiety (Ritt, 2016). This would lead them to shift their attention from
engaging in meaningful relationships with their students to focusing only on having them master
certain subjects for exams, spending less time on other important activities.
Excessive focus on covering exam materials would also create more pressure and stress on
students (Brockmeier et al., 2014; Ritt, 2016; Wellman, 2006). As teachers revert to using unilateral
lectures to finish the lessons, students start to find the classes boring, talk, make noise, and
disengage. Instead, teachers should not move onward in their teaching without checking for
students’ understanding. They also need to differentiate instruction according to students’ aca-
demic needs (Poncy, Fontenelle, & Skinner, 2013); however, this was not achieved in most cases at
the school we visited.
The resulting disruptive behaviours of students have a reflexive effect on the situation, trigger-
ing punishment by teachers, and the whole relationship breaks down. A relationship that should be
characterized by high levels of reciprocity and collaboration on meaningful tasks that should lead
to students’ development is replaced by another relationship, characterized by divergent aims
between the two parties. Teachers do not want to waste time addressing students’ feelings of
boredom, as they might think they are wasting teaching time; in fact, however, the chance to
consolidate their relationship with their students would save more time than just carrying on. The
result of the latter path might be that teachers formally complete the teaching requirements but
students become disengaged and their needs are not considered. If teachers only want to fulfil
academic requirements and students want to be supported academically and psychologically,
there will be a lack of reciprocity that will create an atmosphere not conducive to learning and
impact students’ feelings of school belonging.
Affect refers to feelings of love, respect, and attachment in a relationship, as noted. Our findings
indicate that the affect dimension in this school was towards the negative end of the continuum.
While all participating teachers said they had had caring, supportive, and respecting relationships
with students, students believed that some teachers cared only about finishing the curriculum and
neither respected nor supported their students, academically or psychologically. Adolescent stu-
dents need the support of their teachers. As Miller and Desberg (2009) argue, adolescence is
a transitional period that usually makes one more prone to make mistakes. It is the teachers’ role
and responsibility to have good relationships with their students and to work towards enhancing
their intellectual, interpersonal, and social growth (Uslu & Gizir, 2017).
Additionally, teachers have an ethical obligation to employ the best teaching practices available.
This can be promoted when teachers critically reflect on their practice and meticulously alter any
negative practices (Hulst, 2014). Showing care, love, support, and respect for students in general
and adolescents in particular has to be given the utmost importance, as ‘In secondary school,
[teachers] have the ability to contribute in a positive way to student engagement by means of
affiliation with their student’ (De Laet et al., 2016, p. 1240). Furthermore, Miller and Desberg (2009)
argue that teachers must be accountable for students’ psychological safety, and need to refrain
from any behaviour that may cause psychological damage to students. Teachers need to treat
adolescents in particular ways to prepare them for their future lives. In this case study, the focus on
fulfiling teaching requirements has left little time for teachers to provide attention and care to non-
academic issues. The whole educational experience becomes mechanized, and the nurturing and
social dimensions become a posteriority. Teachers might understand that the relationship should
involve more than just teaching content but had limited leeway to move beyond the prescribed
framework. Teaching for exams, as Brady (2008) indicated, causes a level of anxiety in some
teachers that impedes the development of rich relationships between teachers and students;
and makes teachers less sensitive to students’ rights and needs (Stone-Johnson, 2016).
392 A. IBRAHIM AND W. EL ZAATARI

On the other hand, it seemed that some students did not care about how teachers might feel
because of their careless attitudes. They did not listen to teachers and showed no cooperation or
respect for classroom rules. In such situations, teachers’ well-being might be influenced by these
behaviours and their self-esteem might be negatively impacted by the careless reactions of students
(Spilt, Koomen, & Thijs, 2011). Furthermore, students’ disrespect could contribute to teachers’ emo-
tional exhaustion and cause a lack of recognition of their personal accomplishments (Hastings & Bham,
2003, p. 122). Hence, taken all together, these negative adolescent behaviours will ‘impact the way
teachers interact with their students and . . . such negative interactions may further aggravate negative
adolescent behaviours’ (De Laet et al., 2016, p. 1240). One result will be, again, to lower levels of
satisfaction and affiliation to the school. Therefore, teachers need to work on gaining respect and trust
from their students (Farrelly, 2013) – respect is key to a successful relationship.
The only beneficial factor found to be present in this study is peer relationships, which played
a significant role in releasing tension and keeping students wanting to come to school. This is
consistent with Boulton, Don, and Boulton (2011) who found that positive peer relationships
predict ‘school liking’. School principals and teachers should work on supporting peer relationships
through activities, projects, competitions, celebrations, and so on. This would be appreciated by
students and viewed as a way of caring about them.
The third dimension of a healthy teacher–student relationship is sharing of power. In fact, in
adolescent years, power sharing and democratic decision making is much needed, as this gives
adolescents the right to have their voices heard and to make their own decisions to prepare them
for the future. However, our findings indicate that in order to keep the pace of teaching at the required
level, the power resided more with teachers although teachers themselves thought that they were
engaging students in decision-making. This imbalance of power between teachers and students, as
reflected for example in who makes decisions inside the classrooms, magnified students’ negative
experience. In the context of a school system characterized by a focus on achievement and uses
a mandated curriculum, there is limited chance for teachers and students to make shared decisions
about students’ learning. Therefore, a change in curricular demands is needed to allow more autonomy
for teachers and students to study material relevant to students’ lives.
Another finding relates to teachers’ sense of positional power relative to students. Although
teachers retain more decision making power than students, they feel insecure, as students can file
complaints and get them in trouble. This is an important issue especially for expat teachers, who
might think that they can lose their jobs easily following a student complaint or grievance. In fact,
Ridge (2014) found that in such cases, expat teachers are indeed in a precarious position relative to
students. Fear of termination due to student complaints leaves teachers insecure in their commu-
nication with students. This could lead to forced care, as teachers would push themselves to be
nice to students even if they were not feeling it.
One example of how power is used or perhaps misused by teachers is for punishment. Teachers
used punishment to control students and correct their ‘misbehaviours’, such as talking in class,
joking, or making noise. However, punishment did not help. Students at this age are no longer
threatened by punishments, such as being made to stand at the back of the room, having their
marks deducted, or being sent to the social worker who will communicate their misbehaviour to
parents or file them warnings. In fact, they often resist these sorts of punishment, as they need to
prove themselves, and can engage in aggressive behaviour. In addition, if teachers keep on
punishing students in front of their peers, especially if this punishment is accompanied by verbal
abuse as it sometimes was in our data, students may be disturbed emotionally and develop hatred
for teachers and the school, even if the punishment does get immediate results (Miller & Desberg,
2009). We argue that it is better for teachers to engage in mutual relationships where students are
respected and given the chance to participate in decisions related to their learning, rather than
trying to control their behaviour through punishment or educate them using coercion.
Creating a balanced power relationship can be achieved, as McHugh, Horner, Colditz, and Wallace
(2013) argued, by working together on creating shared respect and setting guiding principles for
 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENCE AND YOUTH 393

appropriate behaviours that align with and support the normative roles of teacher and student.
Humphreys (2008) also stressed the importance of involving students in decision-making on classroom
and school rules and regulations, replacing corporal punishment with positive reinforcement, and
educating teachers about the significance of using discipline instead of punishment (see also
Weissbourd, Bouffard, & Jones, 2013). School success ‘depends in large part on [teachers’ and admin-
istrators’] capacity for self-reflection, their commitment to making caring and respect priorities, and
their ability to mobilize the moral energy and wisdom of students’ (Weissbourd et al., p. 5).

Conclusion
Based on the above findings and discussion, we conclude that the three dimensions of a healthy and
fruitful relationship between teachers and students were all on the negative side at our case study
school: cooperation or reciprocity was not occurring; respect, care, and love were not prevalent; and
power balance was problematic. It follows naturally that students found the school frustrating and did
not have a high sense of belonging. We are not blaming the teachers or holding that they are 100%
responsible, as students had their share of problem behaviours as well. However, we argue that the
microsystem of the school within which the teacher–student relationship functions should not be
thought of as independent from the overall atmosphere or direction of the education system, and in fact
propose that the relationship could be immensely changed if the macrosystem were different. If the aim
of education was to help students learn, develop, and grow rather than to merely finish curriculum and
see them pass exams, student–teacher relationships would change, we believe, in productive ways.
Second, students spend much of time at school interacting with teachers. They should be provided
with support and care in this important life environment. However, in this case study, we found
students not receiving the needed psychological and academic support from their teachers. Under
the pressures of time and the mandated curriculum, teachers in our study had not paid due attention to
the hurt, disturbance, and degradation of self-confidence they might have caused the students. Distant
from providing students with the support, understanding, and chance to exercise agency they need at
this age, teachers, unintentionally we believe, fostered students’ negative feelings towards them and
towards the school. When it becomes normal to shout at, embarrass, or disrespect students, the
students will not love their school; conversely, when the norm for student behaviour is to be uncaring
or to feel that they are overprotected by the grievance system, students contribute to destabilizing the
relationship. While a lot of teachers do understand child and adolescent development reasonably well
and care deeply about their students, teachers at this school and the like need to know that fulfiling all
the curriculum requirements is not enough. Satisfying the psychological needs of students has to be
a priority for teachers alongside trying to teach them. At the same time, adolescent students as well
need to respect and appreciate teachers’ efforts in educating them. It is extremely hard for teachers to
work with students whom they feel show them little or no respect. There should be reciprocal
understanding and appreciation for each other’s efforts. Commitment, respect, and care have to be
exchanged, and the power relationship has to be balanced. If this can be done, a positive teacher–
student relationship will be developed.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Dr Ali Ibrahim is an Associate Professor at the United Arab Emirates University, teaching and supervising students in
the master and doctorate programmes at the College of Education. He holds a PhD in administrative and policy
studies in education from the University of Pittsburgh, USA. His research interests include educational accountability,
394 A. IBRAHIM AND W. EL ZAATARI

education policy studies, school leadership, higher education, education reform in the Middle East, and teacher
professionalism in the Arab Gulf states. Email: ali_saidebrahim@uaeu.ac.ae
Wafaa El Zaatari is a PhD candidate at the UAE University in the Foundations of the Education Department. She has
a master’s degree in educational leadership from the UAE University. Her research interests include school belonging
among adolescence, students’ safety at school, educational change, ethical practices at school. Email:
200850032@uaeu.ac.ae

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