An investigation of the relationship of 54-72-month-old children with families at different socio-economic status with their teachers according to their executive functioning skills and gender

In this study, the goal is to investigate the executive functioning skills and gender of pre-school children who have various different socio-economic backgrounds, in relation to their relationship with their teachers. The research is a relational study planned in a quantitative design. In the sample determined by the maximum diversity method, there are 598 children between 54-72 months attending kindergartens affiliated to the Ministry of National Education in the central districts of Adana. While collecting the data, "Student-Teacher Relationship Scale" was used to determine the teacher-child relationship, and "Childhood Executive Functions Inventory" was used to measure children's executive functioning skills, and a general information form was used to determine the socio-economic level. In the analysis of the data, " Independent Samples t Test " was used for gender related differences, ANOVA test was used in determining the differences regarding the socio-economic status, and finally Pearson Moment Correlation Test to test the relationship between teacher-child relations and children's executive functioning skills, and simple linear regression analysis was applied to investigate the executive functioning skills predicting teacher-child relationship. As a result of the research, it was found that there were moderate, meaningful relationships between the executive functioning skills (working memory, inhibition) of the children at lower and upper socio-economic levels, and the conflict and closeness in their relationships with their teachers. It was revealed that the executive functioning skills of the children differed according to the socio-economic level and gender, while the teacher-child relationship did not differ according to the socio-economic level, but the closeness in the relationship differed in favor of the girls. Keywords: Executive functioning skills, teacher-child relationship, socio-economic status, pre-school