Prologue: Introduction

Abstract

The current volume addresses children’s normative and adverse experiences in school-based peer and teacher relationships, with an emphasis on links with concurrent and subsequent neurobiological changes that may help explain the development of behavioral, emotional, and academic problems. Decades of research have shown the detrimental effects of such negative social experiences at school. The volume begins with several chapters providing overviews of normative and maladaptive peer and teacher-child relationship processes, followed by chapters that consider underlying processes at the interface of environmental and biological factors including gene-environment interplay, epigenetics, stress and the biological embedding of adverse experiences, dysregulation and disrupted social decision-making, and brain structure and functioning. Collectively, the chapters present implications for prevention and intervention, along with recommendations for new directions in future research.