Children's appraisal of Teacher as a secure base and their socio-emotional and academic adjustment in middle childhood.

The study addressed three goals: (1) to operationalise the theoretical construct of children's appraisal of teacher as a secure base, (2) to examine the association between children's global attachment orientations towards others and their appraisal of teacher as a secure base, and (3) to investigate the contribution of this appraisal to children's socio-emotional and academic adjustment. The sample comprised 507 children from four public schools in central Israel (age range 8-11 years) and twentythree homeroom teachers, who completed a scale designed to examine Children's Appraisal of Teacher as a Secure Base (CATSB) together with other scales tapping attachment orientations and socio-emotional and academic adjustment. Factor analysis of the CATSB revealed two main factors: (1) availability/acceptance and (2) rejection. Significant high correlations emerged between the CATSB and a global attachment measure. Moreover, the CATSB significantly contributed to the explanation of individual variations in socio-emotional adjustment among these school-age children.