Safe teaching as compensatory practice: relational potential and barriers for vulnerable students in European classrooms

This study investigates how teachers across six European countries understand and practise Safe Teaching — a set of pedagogical actions rooted in attachment theory designed to foster secure teacher-student relationships. Conducted with 90 teachers from 13 schools in Bulgaria, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, and Spain, the research employed focus groups and two-tier content analysis within a Participatory Action Research framework. Findings indicate that teachers understand Safe Teaching as a multidimensional practice encompassing open communication, trust, structure, and individualisation, and suggest its particular compensatory potential for vulnerable students: when teachers function as secure attachment figures, the school may partially offset the absence of relational security in students’ home environments. However, the study also identifies a structural obstacle to this compensatory function — a negative feedback loop in which the students who would benefit most from Safe Teaching are precisely those whose histories of insecure attachment make them most difficult to bond with. Additional findings include the centrality of teacher authenticity and socio-emotional competence as internal drivers, and the indispensable role of collegial, family, and institutional support as external conditions. The results underscore the need for targeted professional development and school cultures that deliberately sustain teachers’ capacity to provide relational security, particularly where that capacity is most tested.