Jill Aldridge Archives

School climate can make a big difference to children with mental health issues

A national survey of Australian secondary school students aged between 15 and 19 years found that one in four students had a probable serious mental illness. The findings are not new, nothing much has changed in the last ten years. In addition, according to the survey:

6% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students met the criteria for probable serious mental illness;
Female students were almost twice as likely as male students to meet the criteria for having a serious mental illness; and
35% of 17 to 25 year old students were experiencing self-harm or suicidal thoughts.

The Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing reported 13.9% of 4 to 17 year olds were assessed as having mental disorders, including major depressive disorder. Compounding this problem, the prevalence of bullying in Australian schools is high, with 27% of students aged 8 to 14 reporting that they were bullied. Our rates for both these issues have been relatively stable over the last decade, suggesting that mental health and wellbeing are not improving.

So, what can we do about it?

A range of policy-level initiatives have led to funding for a range of programmes and services that target young people’s mental health and wellbeing, such as Headspace, the KidsMatter Primary programme and MindMatters.

But what about school-level ideas?

How can schools make a difference to student mental health and wellbeing –and what is realistic now,in the context of existing staffing, funding, policies and requirements?

Our research on school climate: one way schools can contribute

Our research centres on measuring socio-emotional school and classroom climates, and investigating how these climates affect students’ experiences and outcomes. As part of this work, we recently published a systematic literature review in which we examined over 550 past studies and synthesised the 48 studies that directly linked school climate with students’mental health and wellbeing.

96% of the studies we examined found evidence of associations between the school climate and students’mental health and wellbeing. In most cases, the research designs mean that we can’t be sure that it was the school climate that directly caused the student outcomes –but the consistent pattern of associations found in almost all of the studies nonetheless indicates that there are important links between the school climate and students’mental health and wellbeing. Since school climate is “malleable” and can be deliberately modified, it may be a useful lever for promoting positive mental health and wellbeing among students.

Our analysis identified four key aspects of the school climate that are associated with students’mental health and wellbeing. We suggest that by considering these four aspects, schools can take manageable steps to promote an environment that supports student mental health and wellbeing.

Social connectedness / relationships: When students had positive relationships with both their peers and their teachers, they reported better psychosocial wellbeing, more positive / pro-social behaviours, fewer mental health issues, and fewer delinquent or risk behaviours. Aspects contributing to this sense of social connectedness included: positive peer relationships, peer support, an absence of bullying, teacher support, positive relationships with teachers, teachers’regard for students’perspectives, a democratic school environment in which students are given autonomy and voice, and respect and trust between all members of the school community.

School safety: When students felt that their school was a safe environment, they reported better psychosocial wellbeing, more positive / pro-social behaviours, fewer mental health issues, and fewer delinquent or risk behaviours. Aspects contributing to students’sense of school safety included: school safety policies, rule clarity, rule enforcement, mechanisms for reporting and seeking help, and typical behaviour patterns at the school. It is important to note that teachers, parents and students all tend to have different views about how safe a school is, meaning that we should be cautious in making assumptions about how our students might feel about the school.

School connectedness: When students felt a sense of connection to their school, they reported better psychosocial wellbeing, more positive / pro-social behaviours, fewer mental health issues, and fewer delinquent or risk behaviours. Aspects contributing to students’sense of school connectedness included their feelings of belonging at school, their loyalty or attachment to the school, a positive school community, and positive attitudes and practices to affirm diversity.

Academic environment: When students experienced an academic environment that was characterised by high demands and pressure, they reported increased mental health issues and delinquent or risk behaviours. Aspects contributing to high-pressure academic environments included perceived academic demands at the school, a competitive school or classroom culture, an imbalance between academic efforts (what is required of students to meet expectations) and rewards (the outcomes students experience such as grades, praise, and opportunities), and a focus on academic outcomes without attention to social, emotional, and motivational influences.

Ways to make a change

The Melbourne Declaration makes clear that one of the educational goals for young Australians is for students to be able to manage their emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing. The Australian government also recognises the important role that schools play in the wellbeing of our youth. Although wellbeing is explicitly incorporated in the health and physical education learning area of the National Curriculum, we believe attention to mental health and wellbeing should be much broader than this.

To promote student wellbeing, the Australian government has developed the National Safe Schools Framework which provides schools with a vision and ‘a set of guiding principles to develop positive and practical student safety and wellbeing policies’. To support the National Safe Schools Framework, the government has made available the Student Wellbeing Hub which provides a range of resources for educators, parents and students.

Overall, our recent literature review contributes to the growing body of evidence showing that what schools do every day matters for student mental health and wellbeing.Our school climates are not neutral –they have important links to our students’experiences and so it is important for teachers, school leaders, school trustees and policy makers to consider the nature of our current climates and how these can be improved over time. This is one way that we can take better and better care of our youth.

Jill Aldridge is an associate professor at Curtin University, Western Australia. Her central research interests focus on the development of effective, inclusive learning environments at the school and classroom levels. Her research has examined the effects, determinants and outcomes of the school and classroom climate in national, international and cross-cultural settings involving a range of research methods.

Katrina McChesney completed her PhD in 2017 under the supervision of Dr Aldridge, focusing on teachers’ experiences of professional development. She has also contributed to a number of Dr Aldridge’s research and professional development projects related to school climate and its impact on student outcomes. Katrina is currently a Research Officer for Massey University, New Zealand

New research on school climate and how it impacts on bullying and delinquent behaviour

Schooling in Australia today seems to be increasingly focused on content and assessment. We have an obsession with testing and rankings. But school life is much more than that for a child.

Like all other parts of a child’s life, school time is full of socio-emotional experiences. Our research interests lie in these experiences of children at school – especially how these experiences intersect and the patterns and links that arise in what is called school climate.

School climate has been studied for about one hundred years, so we know it influences many outcomes for students both while they are at school and later in life. School climate can have an impact on a student’s self-esteem and self-concept, mental and physical health, academic achievement, attitudes toward schooling and behaviour.

Much of the past research in this field has looked at school climate in general, without drilling down to examine the impact of specific aspects of the school climate. So we decided to look for the detail.

In this blog post, we share some of our recent findings from our large-scale research project; specifically, we want to tell you about the links we found between aspects of the school climate and other outcomes. Educators and policy-makers alike will be able to make use of our research.

We identified 6 key aspects of the socio-emotional school climate

To us, ‘school climate’ is the attitudes, norms, beliefs, values, and expectations that underpin school life and affect the extent to which members of the school community feel safe.

We identified six important aspects of the school climate:

Teacher support – the quality of student-teacher relationships and students’ perceptions of whether their teachers value and support them
Peer connectedness – the quality of inter-student relationships, including relationships across different groups of students
School connectedness – the degree to which students feel a sense of attachment, belonging and connectedness to the school
Affirming diversity – the degree of acknowledgement, acceptance, inclusion and value perceived by students of differing backgrounds and experiences
Rule clarity – the extent to which students feel that the school rules are clear and appropriate
Reporting and seeking help – students’ awareness of school procedures for reporting issues and their willingness to make use of these.

We collected students’ perceptions of these key aspects

We used a questionnaire to collect students’ perceptions of our six key aspects. We gathered responses from over 6,000 students at 17 Australian high schools. Using these responses, we investigated how the students’ perceptions of the above six aspects of the school climate related to their experiences of bullying and their involvement in delinquent behaviours – that is, undesirable behaviours that could have serious negative consequences for either themselves or others. For the purpose of this study, delinquent behaviours were considered to be legal or moral misdeeds and offences, such as smoking, underage drinking, vandalism, stealing and taking drugs.

Our findings

Some of the links we found in the student data were to be expected, such as:

When students had positive experiences of teacher support, school connectedness and rule clarity, students experienced less bullying.
When students had positive experiences of school connectedness and rule clarity, students were less likely to be involved in delinquent behaviour.
When students had been bullied, this increased their likelihood of engaging in delinquent behaviours.

These results show the importance of schools investing in their socio-emotional school climates and suggest that these efforts will be rewarded with improvements in bullying and student behaviour.

However, other links we found are of much concern:

When students had positive perceptions of the attitudes towards diversity within their schools they were more likely to be bullied.
When students had positive perceptions of the mechanisms for reporting and seeking help in their schools they were more likely to be bullied.

Proceed with caution

We have some thoughts about our two unexpected findings:

We wonder whether some school efforts to promote positive attitudes to diversity might have been ‘superficial’ and ended up simply drawing attention to differences without changing students’ underlying attitudes towards, or acceptance and valuing of, diversity. It is important for schools to engage deeply with the complex issues related to diversity and inclusivity. This is an effort that must begin with the teachers themselves, as role models in the school environment.
We wonder whether some schools might have focused on raising awareness of the mechanisms for reporting and seeking help but failed to address school-wide norms and beliefs about whether bullying was ‘okay’. Past research shows that these school-wide norms and beliefs can ‘overrule’ other aspects of the socio-emotional school climate in terms of controlling bullying behaviour, so it is important for schools to tackle these attitudes directly.
Another possible explanation for the link we observed between stronger mechanisms for reporting and seeking help and increased bullying is that teachers may have responded to bullying but in ways that were not effective in changing the behaviour. Past research in Australia and internationally indicates that there is an ongoing need for further investment in professional development to enhance teachers’ understanding of bullying and to equip them to respond in effective ways when bullying occurs.

The importance of structure and support in healthy school climates

Overall, our research confirms the importance of the socio-emotional school climate and shows that there are relationships between the nature of this climate and students’ involvement in bullying and delinquent behaviour. Our research also highlights the importance of both support and structure in healthy school climates.

It can be tempting for schools to focus on structural aspects such as reporting mechanisms, consequences, or zero-tolerance approaches to bullying. However, our findings align with past research that has shown that these structural aspects alone do not provide an effective fit with adolescents’ developmental needs. They need to be balanced with strong socio-emotional support including positive peer relationships, supportive relationships with teachers, and a sense of belonging and connectedness at school.

Most importantly, our research shows that schools need to look carefully at current practices and question their effectiveness. Some children at your school may well be being bullied, and this bullying may be occurring as a direct result of well-intentioned attempts to improve the school climate.

Jill Aldridge is an associate professor at Curtin University. Her central research interests focus on the development of effective, inclusive learning environments at the school- and classroom-level. Her work in school improvement has led to the emergence of the National School Improvement (NSI) Partnerships initiative, which is currently working with over 50 schools across five Australian states. Her research has examined the effects, determinants and outcomes of the school and classroom climate in national, international and cross-cultural settings involving a range of research methods.

Katrina McChesney has recently completed her PhD under the supervision of Dr Aldridge, focusing on teachers’ experiences of professional development. She has also contributed to a number of Dr Aldridge’s research and professional development projects related to school climate and its impact on student outcomes. Katrina is currently on the NZARE National Council.

Ernest Afari obtained a PhD in Mathematics Education from Curtin University, Western Australia, under the supervision of Dr Aldridge. He is an adjunct senior research fellow at Curtin University. His research interests are as follows: Teaching and learning with a focus on students’ perception of their learning environment; Application of structural equation modeling and other multivariate techniques to examine substantive issues.

Relationships between school climate, bullying and delinquent behaviours Jill M. Aldridge, Katrina McChesney, Ernest Afari