School competence in young adolescence: Links to early attachment relationships beyond concurrent self-perceived competence and representations of relationships

Abstract

Predictive associations of infant attachment to mothers and fathers with later school functioning, beyond the contribution of contemporaneous representations of relationships and circumstances of caregiving, were examined in 66 young adolescents who were raised in infancy in Israeli kibbutzim with collective sleeping. The Strange Situation Procedure was used to evaluate early attachment to mother and father, the Separation Anxiety Test was used to assess contemporaneous representation of relationships, and teachers’ reports evaluated school functioning. Circumstances of caregiving included parental reports of quality of marital relations and a change from collective sleeping to home sleeping for children. Results showed that infant attachment to mother, but not to father, contributed significant additional variance to the prediction of children’s scholastic skills and emotional maturity beyond the contribution of concurrent representations of relationships and changes in circumstances of caregiving. The results support the secure base construct as an organising concept of longitudinal investigations of attachment.