Does School Climate Really Matter? a Multilevel Model for Examining School Climate, Socioeconomic Status, and Academic Achievement for Secondary School Students

Background and Purpose:

Researchers and practitioners assert that supportive school and classroom climates positively influence the academic outcomes of students, thus potentially reducing academic achievement gaps between students and schools of different socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. Literature has demonstrated that student and school SES are among the strongest predictors of academic achievement, to the detriment of students and schools with lower SES backgrounds. The role of school climate in these relationships have been examined; however, evidence establishing directional links and mechanisms between SES, school climate, and academic achievement are inconclusive. This study seeks to provide empirical evidence on the relationships between school climate, SES, and academic achievement of high school students. Specifically, assessing the influence of SES and the number of academic risk factors on achievement when considering perceptions of school climate and academic peer affiliations.

Methods:

Data used are from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) which tracked the educational and developmental experiences of a nationally representative sample of high school sophomores in the U.S. Base-year (2002) and first follow-up (2004) data were used.

Sampling design for the current study involved a multistage process resulting in a final sample size of n=9,518. Of this sample, 51% were female and 49% were male; age range of 15-16 years old. The racial and ethnic breakdown was 62% White and 38% either Hispanic, Black, Asian, American Indian, or Multiracial. 

All measures were from the ELS:2002 database and consisted of parent and student questionnaires and math assessments created by the developers. Academic achievement was the outcome variable measured using 12^th grade standardized scores on a math achievement test during the 2003-2004 school year. Student-level variables included SES, academic risk factor, school climate perceptions (school safety and teacher-student relations), and academic peer affiliation. School-level variables included aggregated means of student-level variables.  

Data were analyzed using multilevel linear modeling (MLM) conducted in SAS 6.4. 

Results:

MLM assessed the effects of student-level and school-level predictors on math achievement. Twenty-four percent of the variation in math achievement was between schools. The remaining variation was due to differences among students within schools. Student-level predictors accounted for 17% of the within-school variation in math achievement. School-level predictors accounted for 61% of between-school variance in math achievement. In the final model, SES, academic risk factors, and perceptions of school safety at the student-level were statistically significant (p <.05). At the school-level, the standardized aggregated means of SES, academic risk factors, and perceptions of school safety remained statistically significant. Academic peer affiliation and perceptions of teacher-student relations were found nonsignificant and were eliminated from the final model. SES and academic risk factors maintained the greatest effect on math achievement at the student and school level.

Conclusions and Implications:

Findings suggest that school’s SES influences its social climate, which in turn influences academic achievement. Thus, schools affected by high poverty and risk-related social issues often fail to establish a safe and supportive school climate. School social workers must assist with school-wide initiatives to alter school climate to be more supportive and conducive to student learning.