School climate in middle schools: a multidimensional, multi-informant and longitudinal perspective

Abstract

School is the educational context where generations of students are formed to become responsible and participating citizens. For a long time, research in educational psychology has provided a vast repertoire of knowledge on how schools could innovate their educational and didactic practices in order to face a changing society; nonetheless, there is still a gap between research and practice. Nowadays, the increasing demands of a complex society are making the need to innovate even more pressing and schools need to face the challenge through a process of self-awareness and self-improvement. In this direction, research on school climate is a promising field. This construct offers a comprehensive and multidimensional perspective on the school environment, including aspects related to everyday practices and the relational and educational environment. There is a vast literature providing evidence that a good school climate is associated with positive outcomes and researchers agree in considering it as a viable way of intervention in schools. However, the literature still suffers from several weaknesses. While authors have long agreed that school climate’s research greater strength is its potential to embrace the complexity of real school environments, some elements of complexity, such as the comprehensive multidimensionality of the construct, the rigor in its measurement, the different perceptions of multiple actors and their evolution over time, were mostly overlooked. The purpose of this research project was to address the main gaps of the literature to provide an innovative perspective on school climate, capturing the nuanced complexity of the school environment. The project was organized in four studies with different methodologies, each addressing a specific weakness of the literature and contributing a piece of complexity to the general picture. The entire population (students, teachers and parents) of four middle schools in Northern Italy was involved in the project, for a total of 1645 students, 105 teachers and 320 parents. The project started, in Study 1, with the development and validation of a measure of school climate addressing several limitations of the previously existing instruments. Study 2 was based on a multi-informant design to provide a comparison of the perspectives of students, teachers and parents. Study 3, based on a person-oriented approach, focused on identifying student profiles with different patterns of engagement and burnout and comparing their school climate perceptions. Study 4, with a longitudinal design, inquired on the evolution over time and reciprocal effects of students’ perceptions of several school climate dimensions, as well as on the reciprocal effects of school climate and students’ engagement and burnout. Implications for research and practice are discussed.