School Climate Matters

Shanghai Schools from a Comparative Perspective

Ning Bo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367503994
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000168419
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book describes the effect of school climate on student academic achievement. The unexpected leading position of Shanghai in its first and second appearance of the PISA survey—topping every league table in this assessment by a clear margin—attracted attention from all over the world. This book focuses on the relationship between student academic achievement and the characteristics of students and schools in Shanghai, while showing the effects of these factors within this specific educational ecology.

Bo Ning considers the relationship between school climate and student academic achievement using data from PISA 2009 and 2012, with a focus on reading and mathematics. School climate is confined to the quality and characteristics of school life in relationships, and teaching and learning issues from a student perspective. In each chapter, one or several of the following five school climate variables are explored: school appreciation, teacher-student relations, disciplinary climate, reading atmosphere, and supportive climate. In addition to the focus on school climate, three basic concerns run through the whole book: the Shanghai educational context, the comparative approach, and causal inference.

This book will be of great interest to academics, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of international and comparative education.

Chapter 1

Introduction

School climate: framing the topic

Development of school climate research and the definition of school climate

Researchers have been interested in school climate for quite a long time. Some scholars (Cohen, McCabe, Michelli, & Pickeral, 2009; Zullig, Koopman, Patton, & Ubbes, 2010) have posited that The Management of a City School written by Perry in 1908 was the first book to explicate the importance of school climate. In the 1950s, educators began to study school climate systematically, based upon the advances in methodologies and instruments promoted by organizational climate research (Cohen, 1955; Kelley, 1952; Pace & Stern, 1958; Shibutani, 1955). The development of scientifically sound school climate assessment tools spurred research in the education domain that continues to grow today (Cohen, McCabe, Michelli & Pickeral, 2009; Zullig et al., 2010). The notion of school climate has been the focal point of a growing body of educational research, and is associated with other concepts in the education literature, such as school culture, school connectedness, and school bonding, as well as atmosphere, feelings, tone, setting, life and milieu of the school (Cohen et al., 2009; Ding, Liu, & Berkowitz, 2011; Freiberg, 1999; Homana, Barber, & Torney-Purta, 2006). Meanwhile, scholars in many other disciplines, such as business, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, continued to study school climate (Anderson, 1982; Hoy & Hannum, 1997; Cushing, Horner, & Barrier, 2003; MacNeil, Prater, & Busch, 2009; Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2013; Trickett & Moos, 1973). As a result, there is a great diversity in school climate research with respect to the variables studied, methodologies utilized, and theories and models developed, which may be one reason why there is no single definition of school climate (Cushing et al., 2003).

There has been a clear trend in the development of school climate research: the terminology used to define school climate transformed from intuitive, to empirical, and finally to comprehensive. In the 1960s and 1970s, researchers tended to use analogies such as “personality is to the individual what ‘climate’ is to the organization” (Halpin & Croft, 1963, p. 1); or, to say, school climate is “the general ‘we-feeling,’ group sub-culture or interactive life of the school” (Nwankwo, 1979, p. 268). In the 1980s and 1990s, when the emphasis was on active interventions in schooling, definitions with clear and definite operability became more and more important. Practical terms such as “shared perceptions” and “social atmosphere” became the core concepts of the definitions. For instance, Keefe and colleagues (1990, p. 55) defined school climate as “the relatively enduring pattern of shared perceptions (by teachers, students, and community members) of the characteristics of a school and of its members, that is, the perceptions of the culture of a school.” Recently, due to the participation of scholars with diverse interests in this research domain, systematic and comprehensive umbrella concepts of school climate have become more prevalent. For instance, the U.S. National School Climate Council (2007, p. 4) observed that “school climate is based on patterns of people’s experiences of school life and reflects norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching and learning practices, and organizational structures.”

Although there is still no universally accepted definition of school climate, many researchers and organizations (e.g., the educational departments of some U.S. states, the educational ministries of France and Peru, and the UN Children’s Fund) have come to accept the definition given by the U.S. National School Climate Center (NSCC) that “School climate refers to the quality and character of school life. School climate is based on patterns of students,’ parents,’ and school personnel’s experience of school life and reflects norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching and learning practices, and organizational structures” (Cohen et al., 2009, p. 180). Meanwhile, most of the researchers and organizations in this area recognize the multidimensional nature of school climate (Cohen et al., 2009; Osher and Kendziora, 2010; Yale Child Study Center, 2012; Zullig et al., 2010). For instance, based upon extensive school climate evaluation practice and research, NSCC summarized patterns of students,’ school personnel’s, and parents’ experiences of school life from four dimensions with which they believe that virtually all researchers agree: (1) Safety includes physical and social-emotional safety; (2) Relationships include respect for diversity, school community and collaboration, and morale and “connectedness”; (3) Teaching and learning issues includes quality of instruction, social, emotional and ethical learning, professional development and leadership; (4) The environmental-structural dimension includes physical surrounding, school policy and educational resources (Cohen et al., 2009).

Considering that it is almost impossible to investigate all predictors in the four dimensions of school climate simultaneously, previous empirical studies focused on one or several aspects of school climate. In this book, NSCC’s definition of school climate is used. Due to the limitation of using non-self-designed databases, school climate in our work is confined to the quality and character of school life in relationships and teaching and learning issues from a student perspective. The empirical studies in this book used five school climate variables, aggregated from student level indices in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 database. These variables are school appreciation, teacher–student relations, disciplinary climate, reading atmosphere, and supportive climate.¹ The aggregation of these school climate variables from the respective student level indices was found to be reliable and valid (in terms of Cronbach’s αs and internal correlation coefficients, see Appendix A2 and A4 for examples) in each participant country (economy or community) under study. From our perspective, these school climate variables properly represent the working definition of school climate in this book. Generally, school appreciation reflects students’ overall evaluation of the quality of school life. Teacher–student relations is a character of school life in relationships. Disciplinary climate, reading atmosphere, and supportive climate are three characters of school life in language teaching and learning issues, which is the focus subject of this book. For information on the construction of each school climate variable, please see Appendix A1 and A2 for examples.

Purposes of school climate research

School climate—by definition—reflects students,’ school personnel’s, and parents’ experiences of school life socially, emotionally, civically, and ethically as well as academically (Cohen & Geier, 2010). As mentioned above, school climate is a comprehensive research area. Firstly, the elements comprising school climate are extensive and complex. Secondly, school climate influences many stakeholders, including students, parents, school personnel, and the community, which might have different perceptions of school life. Thirdly, school climate can significantly impact other elements in the educational environment, which makes the analysis of school climate even more complicated. Generally speaking, there are three categories of research purposes aiming at school climate in school effectiveness research area.

To understand student and support student development

Positive and sustained school climate is associated with and/or predictive of positive youth development (Cohen & Geier, 2010). A Search Institute review of many studies (Minnesota Elementary School Principals’ Association, 2011) found that a caring school climate is associated with (1) higher grades, engagement, attendance, expectations and aspirations, a sense of scholastic competence, fewer school suspensions, and on-time progression through grades (19 studies); (2) higher self-esteem and self-concept (5 studies); (3) less anxiety, depression and loneliness (3 studies); (4) less substance abuse (4 studies).

As long as students feel safe, cared for, appropriately supported, and lovingly “pushed” to learn, academic achievement would increase (Cohen et al., 2009; Freiberg, 1999; Haynes, Emmons & Ben-Avie, 1997; Sherblom, Marshall, & Sherblom, 2006; Whitlock, 2006). School climate powerfully affects students’ social life within and beyond the schoolyard. Considering the difficulties in extending knowledge and behaviors obtained in school social activities, researchers suggest encouraging active and collaborative learning on authentic projects in an environment that have a civic mission and that encourage trusting relationships among all members of the school community (Carnegie Corporation of New York, 2003; Comer, 2005; Education Commission of the States, 2000). When such activities, like community services and public debates, are presented in a supportive and collaborative environment, they encourage students to build on one another’s ideas based upon these projects, which keep in accordance with the criteria in the wider civil society to which they will get involved deeply in adulthood (Cohen et al., 2009; Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Schulz, 2001; Wentzel & Watkins, 2002).

Positive school climate has been correlated with fewer behavioral and emotional problems for students and helps protect against the development of problem behaviors in youth (Kuperminc, Leadbeater, Emmons, & Blatt, 1997). A safe, caring, participatory, and responsive school climate is also linked with effective risk prevention and health-promotion efforts (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005; Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, & Hawkins, 2002; Juvonen, Le, Kaganoff, Augustine, & Constant, 2004). The findings in school climate research area have contributed to the U.S. Department of Education examining ways to use school climate and culture as an organizing data-driven concept that recognizes the range of pro-social efforts and risk prevention/mental health-promotion efforts that protect children and promote essential social, emotional, ethical and civic learning (Jennings, 2009).

To understand and improve teacher devotion and satisfaction

School climate influences the ways how educators feel about being in school and how they teach. Teachers’ perceptions of school climate influence their confidence in affecting student learning (Hoy & Woolfold, 1993) as well as their ability to implement school-based character and development programs (Betts, Zau, & Rice, 2003; MacNeil et al., 2009), enhance or minimize emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of low personal accomplishment (Grayson & Alvarez, 2008) and attrition (Miller, Brownell, & Smith, 1999).

When teachers feel supported by both the principal and their peers, they are more committed to their profession (Singh & Billingsley, 1998). Another study (Richards, 2011) examining the relationship between principal behaviors and teacher retention indicates that teachers value most being treated with respect and fairness and receiving support in matters of discipline from their principals. Hence, healthy school climate draws teachers to love school and to be an active part of it, while unhealthy ones ae deter them in their mission and goals by parental and public demands (Hoy & Tarter, 1997).

Job satisfaction is often connected to extrinsic and intrinsic rewards at work. Because teachers usually do not have many extrinsic rewards to count on (e.g. high salaries, promotional opportunities, job security, working conditions, etc.), they need to achieve satisfaction from intrinsic sources, such as their work and their contact with students (Conley & Levinson, 1993; Ingersoll, 2001; Sclan, 1993; Taylor & Tashakkori, 1995). It is not surprising that job satisfaction increases when teachers deal with academically capable students who behave well (Taylor & Tashakkori, 1995). As such, one can easily imagine that teaching in lower tracks also has negative consequences for teacher satisfaction, considering the relative lower achievement of students than those ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Series editor’s note
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction
• 2. School climate and reading performance: An exploration in Shanghai
• 3. Students’ individual perceptions of school climate predict reading achievement in Shanghai
• 4. What makes the difference in reading achievement? Comparisons between Finland and Shanghai
• 5. The influence of classroom disciplinary climate of schools on reading achievement": A cross-country comparative study
• 6. Examining the importance of discipline in Chinese schooling: An exploration in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taipei
• 7. Discipline, motivation, and achievement in mathematics learning: An exploration in Shanghai
• 8. General discussion
• To the future
• Appendix 1: Study Variables in Chapters 2 to 5
• Appendix 2: Reliability of the study variables in Chapters 2, 3, and 4
• Appendix 3: Percentile score gaps in raw data or with each predictor under control in Chapter 4
• Appendix 4: Number of participant students, number of participant schools, and country average score, reliability, ICC(1), and ICC(2) of classroom disciplinary climate of schools in each PISA 2009 participant country (economy) (OECD/Partner) in Chapter 5
• Appendix 5: Country-specific effects of classroom disciplinary climate of schools in each model in Chapter 5
• References
• Index