# **Introduction**

School safety and classroom disciplinary climate have a direct impact on teachers’ ability to teach and students’ ability to learn. The more time teachers spend on classroom management, the less they are able to direct their efforts toward the teaching and learning practices. School safety and classroom disciplinary climates have been declining in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, as will be demonstrated in this paper, thus creating disruptive learning environments that have a negative impact on student learning outcomes. This rise of disrupted learning environments is alarming given the already low levels of student performance outcomes in MENA, as measured by international assessments (World Bank 2018). However, learning outcomes are not the only concern. Rather, school safety and classroom disciplinary approaches can have emotional and psychological effects on the development of students, and they may affect future individual and social well-being. Thus, given the large individual and societal costs of disrupted learning environments, investigating the causes and impacts of school safety and classroom disciplinary climate is critical.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the determinants associated with disrupted learning environments, at the school and classroom levels, in the MENA region and to uncover the impacts these environments have on student learning outcomes. This information will provide policy makers evidence on disrupted learning environments while offering some recommendations on how these conditions can be improved. This paper aims to address the two following questions:

- What does the school safety and classroom disciplinary climate look like in MENA schools and how does it differ from other regions?

- What impact does poor school safety and classroom disciplinary climate have on the performance of students in the MENA region?

# **Data and Approach**

School safety and classroom disciplinary climates are the two components of focus in this paper. School safety is measured using the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) safety index, which describe the state of misbehavior and violence among students and school staff. The index is estimated by asking school principals their perspective on safety and violent incidents. The school safety index is comparable across all the PIRLS and TIMSS surveys because the items in all the years the assessment studies were utilized. This allows for comparability of the school safety index in countries that did not participate in the same years of the assessment rounds.

The school safety indexes in TIMSS and PIRLS are derived from principals being asked to rate the degree to which student misbehavior represents a serious problem in their school. The considered issues are: tardiness, absenteeism, classroom disturbance, cheating, profanity, vandalism, theft, intimidation or verbal abuse among students, physical injuries to other students, intimidation or verbal abuse of teachers or staff.

The PIRLS and TIMSS school principal surveys are well suited for capturing the occurrence of negative events at school. However, they may be subject to declaration biases for two reasons. First, the principal, as the school leader, is the ultimate person accountable for incidents, violent or not, that occur within a school. Therefore, school principals might be reluctant to admit serious deviations from the norm. Second, the principals’ management style has been shown to be critical in setting a culture of discipline, guaranteeing the enforcement of rules, and providing an adequate learning environment.

Moreover, principals’ support is found to be key to setting the tone for school disciplinary processes and teacher morale (Stallings and other 1981). Empirical studies also demonstrate that transformational leadership in schools is effective in improving the quality of pedagogy, school safety the disciplinary climate, and even explaining directly students’ performance (Halawah, 2005; Marks and others 2003; 2