Correlates of affectionate and angry behavior in child care educators of preschool-aged children

The present study marks the first empirical exploration designed to investi gate factors related specifically to child care educators' levels of affect ion and anger. Based on the presumption that their affectionate and angry b ehaviors would have major implications for the development of the children for whom they care, the aim of the present investigation is to provide the groundwork for identifying what factors are associated with educator warmth and anger in child care settings. Several categories of variables were used to predict affectionate and angry caregiver behavior. These included educator characteristics, such as train ing and experience, personal resources such as well-being, self-esteem and social support, the work environment as measured by regulatable characteris tics, wages and global quality, and the caregiver's perceptions and opinion s about her work. A multi-method, multi-respondent approach was employed, i ncluding researcher observations, educator self-report questionnaires, and objective data collected from directors and from Quebec's official licensin g agency. The findings from this study suggest that different sets of variables are r elated to affection and anger. The work environment had a greater relation with caregivers' affectionate behavior, whereas more internal, negative per ceptions were linked to the expression of anger in the classroom. Though ed ucator training did not predict anger or affection, training did in fact be come very important to the quality of the interactions the educators had wi th the children when other risk factors were present.