The educative relationship in primary school: aggressive tendencies and pro-social behavior

The general objective of this work is to analyze how pupils' aggressive tendencies and prosocial behaviour can influence the perception of a given educative relationaship, both from the point of view of the pupil and of the teacher. This study shall focus particularly on aggressive tendencies and pro-social behaviour envisaged as indicators of social adaptation's capability. The research has been conduced on a sample of 249 pupils and 30 teachers, belonging to 15 primary school classes in the province of Turin. Both teachers and pupils agree that children with difficulties of social adaptation apear to maintain less positive relationship: their lower pro-social behaviour matches lack of closeness in relationships and the increase of affective distance within them. Moreover, augmented aggressive tendencies have been discovered among pupils with higher levels of conflict.