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Profiles of Student Perceptions of School Climate: Relations with Risk Behaviors and Academic Outcomes
Author(s) -
Shukla Kathan,
Konold Timothy,
Cornell Dewey
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1002/ajcp.12044
Subject(s) - school climate , psychology , health psychology , student engagement , perception , discipline , latent class model , academic achievement , developmental psychology , social psychology , public health , mathematics education , medicine , sociology , social science , statistics , nursing , mathematics , neuroscience
School climate has been linked to a variety of positive student outcomes, but there may be important within‐school differences among students in their experiences of school climate. This study examined within‐school heterogeneity among 47,631 high school student ratings of their school climate through multilevel latent class modeling. Student profiles across 323 schools were generated on the basis of multiple indicators of school climate: disciplinary structure, academic expectations, student willingness to seek help, respect for students, affective and cognitive engagement, prevalence of teasing and bullying, general victimization, bullying victimization, and bullying perpetration. Analyses identified four meaningfully different student profile types that were labeled positive climate, medium climate‐low bullying, medium climate‐high bullying, and negative climate. Contrasts among these profile types on external criteria revealed meaningful differences for race, grade‐level, parent education level, educational aspirations, and frequency of risk behaviors.