School Climate Research Summary: August 2012. School Climate Brief, Number 3
Author: Thapa, Amrit
Date: 2012-08-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Elementary Secondary Education,Educational Environment,Correlation,School Safety,Interpersonal Relationship,Learner Engagement,Educational Improvement,Change Strategies,Educational Change,Standards,Student Diversity,Instruction

Over the past three decades, researchers and educators have increasingly recognized the importance of K-12 school climate. This summary report builds on previous school climate reviews and details how school climate is associated with and/or promotes safety, healthy relationships, engaged learning and teaching and school improvement efforts. In America and around the world, there is growing interest in school climate reform and appreciation that this is a viable, data driven school improvement strategy that promotes safer, more supportive and civil K-12 schools. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2009) recommends school climate reform as a data driven strategy that promotes healthy relationships, school connectedness, and dropout prevention. The Institute for Educational Sciences includes school climate as a sound strategy for dropout prevention. The U. S Department of Education (2007) has invested in the Safe and Supportive Schools (S3) grant program to support state-wide school climate measurement and the study of school climate improvement efforts. A growing number of State Departments of Education are focusing on school climate reform as an essential component of school improvement and/or bully prevention. And, a growing number of educational ministries from around the world (e.g. China, France, Israel, Peru, Singapore, Spain) (Cohen, 2012), and the UN Children's Fund are invested in supporting school climate reform efforts. While early educational reformers such as Perry (1908), Dewey (1916), and Durkheim (1961) recognized that the distinctive culture of a school affects the life and learning of its students, the rise of systematic, empirical study of school climate grew out of industrial/organizational research coupled with the observation that school-specific processes accounted for a great deal of variation in student achievement. Ever since, the research in school climate has been growing systematically, and in recent years many countries are showing a keen interest in this area. Literature in this field suggests that there are empirical evidences being documented on various aspects of school climate in several languages. In this review, the authors address five essential areas of focus: (1) Safety (e.g. rules and norms; physical safety; social-emotional safety); (2) Relationships (e.g. respect for diversity; school connectedness/engagement; social support; leadership); (3) Teaching and Learning (e.g. social, emotional, ethical and civic learning; support for academic learning; support for professional relationships); (4) Institutional Environment (e.g. physical surrounding); and (5) School climate, the Processes of School Improvement. Although there is not yet a consensus about which dimensions are essential to measuring school climate validly, the authors believe that empirical reviews such as these may help to refine and focus understanding of the aspects of school climate that can and need to be assessed.