ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Teacher Education
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Role of Teacher Emotion in EducationView all 8 articles
Teachers' Emotional Competence and Students' Social Integration: Exploring Mediation Pathways Through Teacher-Student Relationships in Elementary Classrooms
Provisionally accepted
Hanna Rauterkus*
Thomas HennemannTobias Hagen
Johanna Krull
Jannik NitzKatrin EibenPawel Roman KulawiakLeonie VerbeckCharlotte Hanisch- University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
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Introduction: The Prosocial Classroom Model theorizes that teachers' emotional competence influences student outcomes through indirect pathways, with teacher-student relationships representing one key mediating pathway. However, empirical evidence testing these specific mediation mechanisms for students' social integration remains limited. Methods: Using multilevel mediation analysis, we examined direct and indirect associations between teachers' emotional competence and students' social integration in a sample of 43 first-grade teachers and 618 students across 18 German elementary schools. Teachers' emotional competence was assessed via self-report (EKF), social integration through students' self-perception (FEESS) and peer nominations, and teacher-student relationship quality from students' perspectives (SPARTS). Results: Teachers' emotional competence showed no significant direct associations with any social integration indicator. However, multilevel mediation analyses revealed a significant indirect pathway through teacher-student closeness for students' self-reported social integration (indirect effect = .022, p = .046), while the total effect reached significance (p = .048). No mediation effects emerged for peer-nominated acceptance or rejection, indicating construct-specific pathways. Discussion: These findings provide initial empirical support for the Prosocial Classroom Model's core proposition that teachers' emotional competence relates to student outcomes primarily through relationship-mediated rather than direct pathways. While effect sizes are small, results suggest that interventions targeting teachers' emotional competence may enhance students' self-perceived social integration by improving teacher-student relationship quality. The differential effects across self-
Keywords: teacher emotional competence, Social integration, teacher-student relationships, Multilevel mediation, Elementary education
Received: 26 Sep 2025; Accepted: 26 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rauterkus, Hennemann, Hagen, Krull, Nitz, Eiben, Kulawiak, Verbeck and Hanisch. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hanna Rauterkus
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