Purpose

Drawing on symbolic interactionism, this study examines how pedagogical guidance (Qianjiao) and preferential recognition (Yanyuan) help explain the relationship between teacher support, poverty agency, and academic performance among disadvantaged students. Pedagogical guidance refers to teachers’ supportive interactions toward students, whereas preferential recognition denotes the selective allocation of support contingent on teachers’ interpretations of students’ displayed agency. Rather than a one-way process, we theorize a bidirectional, process-oriented mechanism in which teacher support may reinforce students’ agency, and students who exhibit stronger agency may be more likely to receive selective support.

Design/methodology/approach

Data are drawn from three waves of the Taiwan Database of Children and Youth in Poverty (TDCYP). We analyze 1,328 students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds who participated in all three waves using multiple linear regression. Teacher support is used as a proxy for pedagogical guidance. Poverty agency is measured by three indicators—current adaptation, diligence (an upward-learning attitude), and future educational aspirations—which function as cues for teachers’ selective support. Class ranking operationalizes academic performance. We estimate two corresponding models to compare two theorized pathways—one emphasizing pedagogical guidance and the other preferential recognition—to assess their associational links with academic outcomes.

Findings/results

Results indicate reciprocal associations between teacher support and poverty agency with respect to academic performance. Poverty agency plays a key mediating role in the relationship between teacher support and class ranking: diligence and future educational aspirations fully mediate the association between teacher support and class ranking, consistent with the interpretation that support is channeled via students’ motivation and long-term planning. Conversely, teacher support partially mediates the association between poverty agency and class ranking; students who demonstrate greater diligence are more likely to elicit supportive interactions from teachers, which are associated with both direct and indirect improvements in class ranking.

Originality/value

Anchored in symbolic interactionism, the study introduces and operationalizes the culturally embedded notions of Qianjiao and Yanyuan to explain how teacher–student interactions shape the academic development of disadvantaged students, with the classroom conceptualized as a prototypical arena of symbolic exchange and teachers acting as significant others. By focusing on the dynamic interplay between teacher support and poverty agency, the analysis moves beyond unidirectional accounts of teacher influence and illuminates the symbolic processes through which meanings are constructed in everyday classroom interactions. The evidence helps address gaps in research on disadvantage, academic development, and teacher–student mechanisms, and informs education policies in Taiwan aimed at mitigating poverty-related disadvantages, promoting educational equity, and enhancing support structures.

Implications for policy/practice

Given that teacher support and student agency jointly bear on academic development, policy should strengthen both. At the teacher level, build teachers’ capacity to identify and counsel disadvantaged students and encourage teachers to provide individualized academic support to students so that they can use resources effectively. At the student level, implement motivation-enhancing mechanisms (e.g., goal setting and formative feedback) to ensure that efforts are recognized and supported in a timely manner. Schools should adopt fair and transparent assessment systems—drawing on learning portfolios and a diverse range of assessments—to direct appropriate resources to students with potential and avoid concentrating opportunities among a select few.