School relationships and well-being in elementary students: A latent profile analysis

Abstract

The quality of school-related relationships plays an important role in children's well-being. Prior research has frequently evaluated domains of children's school-related relationships separately, making it more difficult to understand the interplay between relationships in different domains. To address this gap, we analyzed data from 11,945 third grade children enrolled in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study and used Latent Profile Analysis to construct empirically derived profiles of students' school-related relationship functioning across domains of peer victimization, peer aggression, prosocial behavior, and closeness and conflict with their classroom teacher. We then tested the extent to which student and school demographic factors were associated with profile membership, as well as how profile membership predicted subsequent academic, behavioral, emotional, and health outcomes. We found evidence of five distinct profiles of school-related relationships in third grade. Overall, students who were male, Black, lower income, or who attended Title I (or low income) schools were significantly more likely to have profiles with poorer school-related relationship functioning. Assignment to profiles with better school-related relationship functioning in grade three was significantly associated with better academic, behavioral, emotional, and physical health outcomes in grade five. Results support the valuable role of school-related relationships for well-being in elementary school students. Students with profiles of lower school-related relationship functioning may benefit from multi-level interventions to support their well-being.