Relationships among teachers' attitudes, teachers' ratings of leadership characteristics, and children's perceptions of leadership opportunities

The teachers' influence on the development of leader-ship has not been documented fully, especially in relation to the child's perception of her/his opportunity to prac-tice leadership. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among autocratic and democratic teacher attitudes, teachers' ratings of leadership characteristics, and children's perceptions of opportunities to practice leadership in 4th-grade classrooms.

The study was conducted in 26 classrooms in the Knoxville (Tennessee) City Schools. Each of the teachers completed the Minnesota Teacher Attitude Inventory as well as the Scale of Leadership Characteristics for each of the children in her/his classroom. The 526 children completed the Children's Leadership Opportunities Scale.

Pearson product-moment correlations were computed between children's leadership opportunities scores and teachers' attitude scores; children's leadership opportunities scores and teachers' ratings of children's leadership characteristics; and teachers' ratings of children's leader-ship characteristics and teachers' attitudes scores. Analyses of variance were calculated between autocratic and democratic teachers on teachers' ratings of leadership characteristics and children's leadership opportunities scores. Differences between boys and girls were determined by the use of t-tests on teachers' ratings of leadership characteristics and children's leadership opportunities scores.

No differences were found between autocratic and democratic teachers' rating of leadership characteristics or on children's perceptions of opportunities to practice leadership tasks. Girls were rated higher in leadership characteristics by teachers, but girls and boys did not report any difference in their perceptions of opportunities to practice leadership tasks in the 4th grade.