How relevant is teacher- and student-perceived relationship quality for mental health in special and regular schools?

Although current research indicates that sustainable dyadic teacher-student relationships (TSRs) can be socially protective against mental health problems, these findings refer primarily to teacher-perceived TSRs in regular schools (cf. Van Bergen et al., 2020). Therefore, this cross-sectional study examined how teacher- and student-perceived TSRs, as well as the disagreements of both perspectives, predict mental health problems in regular and special schools. A total of 228 students from German regular schools (M = 12.27), 245 students from German special schools for social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties (SEBD; M = 13.42), and their class teachers were surveyed about their perceived TSRs using the STRS (closeness, conflict, dependency; Pianta, 2001) and the SPARTS (closeness, conflict, negative expectations; Koomen & Jellesma, 2015). Teachers rated students’ mental health problems using the SDQ (Goodman, 2005). Multilevel analyses showed that dependency and conflict were positively related to mental health problems in both school types, with the effect of conflict being lower in special schools. A positive association between negative expectations and mental health problems was only found in special schools. In both school types, mental health problems increased, the more conflict-perceptions differed (in that teachers rated conflict higher). In special schools, mental health problems decreased with a greater disagreement of closeness-perceptions (in that students rated closeness higher). These results indicate that reducing conflict and dependency may buffer mental health problems in both school types, and reducing negative expectations in special schools. Addressing disagreements in conflict-perceptions seems to be important for both school types and addressing closeness-disagreements for special schools.