Relational competence has proven to be an important component in teacher professionalism. The overall purpose of this article is to adopt a social psychological perspective and discuss aspects of teachers’ relational competence. More specifically, the article aims to construct a theoretical concept for understanding the aspects of relational competence that concern regulating closeness and distance in the teacher-student relationship. In the concluding section, the result is presented in terms of “differentiation competence”. This concept labels a communication pattern characterized by fine-tuned regulation of closeness and distance in the teacher–student relationship and by ongoing coordination of verbal and nonverbal behavior. The emerging concept is illustrated by verbal and nonverbal communication in a classroom setting as portrayed in an episode from a fictional film, including detailed transcription, and interpretation.
|Education Sciences and Psychology
|Publicerad - 2015
- Utbildningsvetenskap (503)