School Work, Teachers, and Peers: The World of First Grade

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Abstract
Children’s perceptions of their experiences with their school work, and teacher and peer relationships were studied in 44 second-born children, participating with their mothers and siblings in a longitudinal investigation, who were interviewed in October and May of their first-grade year. Overall, the majority of children were very positive about their experiences in all three areas of school adjustment. Modest associations between children’s perceptions of their school work, teacher, and peer experiences suggest that although most children perceived their experiences as positive (or negative) across all three areas, some children reported difficulties in one or two individual areas. In addition, although many children’s reported school experiences remained stable over the year, some children’s perceptions changed. The majority of children whose perceived school experiences were marked by discontinuity over the year were positive at the beginning of the year but relatively negative at the end. Finally, the findings from this investigation draw attention to some of the antecedent variables related to children’s subsequent school experiences, in particular, their emotion understanding and earlier relationships with their older siblings.