ABSTRACT

This study focuses on infant teachers’ mind-mindedness when interacting with infants and investigates the differences of their mind-mindedness according to teachers’ and infants’ variables. Participants were 80 infant-teacher dyads in childcare settings in South Korea, and mind-mindedness was assessed with video-recordings of their interactions based on Meins and Fernyhough’s (2012) coding manual. As results, the teachers produced mind-related comments in about 7% of their interactions with the infants, with a low rate (< 1%) of non-attuned comments. Among the appropriate mind-related comments, they made talking on the infant’s behalf most frequently, followed by desires and preferences, emotions, cognitions in the order. Some differences were found in their use of appropriate mind-related comments according to the teachers’ age, major, and career, and the infants’ age and continuity with the teachers. These results are discussed in relation to mind-mindedness as a significant indicator of infant-teacher relationships influenced by some variables and how to improve it.

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