- Trial lecture starts at: 10:00
- Public defence starts at: 12:00
Title of trial lecture: What is the significance of teacher–student relationships for students’ development, well-being, and learning in school? (translated from Norwegian)
Disputation chair: Vicedean Gunhild Kvåle
Assessment committee:
- First opponent: Associate professor Hanna Ginner Hau, Stockholms university
- Second opponent: Associate professor Cecilie Evertsen, UiS
- Chair of assessment committee: Associate professor Sverre Tveit, UiA
Supervisors in the doctoral work:
- Main supervisor: Velibor Bobo Kovac, UiA
- Co-supervisor: Kristiina Mänty, Oulu University
Summary of thesis
Although humans are inherently social beings, navigating the social world is not easy. Research has shown that individuals’ regulation of emotions, behaviour, and ways of thinking influences their success. As the social context in which regulation occurs plays an important role, the field of co-regulation has been established with a particular focus on interactions between adults and children. Through co-regulated interactions, children internalise effective emotion regulation strategies and learn to understand, interpret, and respond to their own emotions and behaviours, as well as those of others (Silkenbeumer et al., 2016). This is supported by research showing that children have limited capacity to regulate their emotions, behaviour, and thinking, and need support from their caregivers to stimulate their development of regulation skills (Lobo & Lunkenheimer, 2020). In this process, the parties involved affect and are affected by each other’s emotions and behaviour, as well as the surroundings (Lavelli et al., 2019).
The aim of this thesis is to develop a more profound understanding of co-regulation in parental and educational contexts as these two contexts have been shown to be important for children’s development and learning (Vandenbroucke et al., 2017). Using the methods of video recordings and stimulated recall interviews, the thesis analyses situations in which spontaneous emotions arise in natural settings. More specifically, the thesis explores how co-regulation occurs in different caregiver–child relationships and further discusses how parent–child and teacher–child interactions might influence co-regulatory processes.
Findings indicate that co-regulation in emotional situations can occur in different forms in caregiver–child relationships, depending on the contextual settings and the ways adults interact and respond to children’s signals and needs. The findings highlight the essential role of adults in caregiver-child interactions, underscoring their responsibility as both providers and facilitators of co-regulatory processes. However, analysis shows that there are personal limitations as well as structural constraints, particularly in schools, that can complicate and limit the possibilities for co-regulatory processes. The findings also stress the involvement of the ABC components (affect, behaviour, and cognition) in co-regulation. In sum, the present thesis demonstrates that co-regulation is a sensitive, dynamic and context- and situation-dependent process, where consideration of the adult’s role as well as the ABC components is crucial for supporting children’s emotion regulation development in both parental and educational contexts.
What to do as an online audience member
The disputation is open to the public. To follow the trial lecture and the public defence online, register on Zoom.
We ask online audience members to join no earlier than 10 minutes in advance. After these times, you can leave and rejoin the meeting at any time.
Opponent ex auditorio:
Deadline for the public to pose questions is during the break between the two opponents. Questions ex auditorio can be submitted to disputation chair.
Contact:
- lise.moss@uia.no
- Phone
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