The link between school climate and violence in school: A meta-analytic review

Abstract

There has been significant interest in whether and how school climate and violent behavior are meaningfully related. The present meta-analysis reviewed studies reporting a relationship between school climate and school violence in order to summarize the total effect and the direction of these research findings. Database consultation and literature hand searching yielded 145 articles which were reviewed by two experts. Studies were included if they reported a statistical effect size of the relationship between school climate and school violence. Exclusion criteria were unclear operationalization of the principal variables, research findings from multiple publications, studies using multi-level analysis and qualitative studies. The meta-analysis included 36 independent studies (N = 113,778) with correlations ranging from − .02 to − .53. Using a random-effects model a moderate mean effect size of r = − .26, CI [− 30, − 21] was found. Statistical findings indicated significant heterogeneity and a large range of variance between studies. Meta-regressions analyzed different potential moderators as relevant factors of heterogeneity, but none of these factors could be identified as a moderator. Due to the large variance between the studies, it remains difficult to draw final conclusions. Nevertheless, the moderate effect size underlines the role of environmental aspects for school violence intervention.

Introduction

School violence remains a very important social issue world-wide (Debarbieux, 2006). A large number of students in schools are affected negatively by it, in the short term as well as in the long term (Gottfredson, 2001). In terms of conceptualization, violence at school is a very heterogeneous phenomenon (Debarbieux, 2006, Smith, 2005, Smith et al., 2003). School violence includes a wide range of behaviors that threaten and harm others emotionally and physically: ranging from intentional physical attacks including the use of weapons, gang violence and sexual assaults, to less serious behaviors like beating and slapping, to relatively harmless kicks and punches (Fuchs, 2009). In general, violence (in schools) as a specific form of risk behavior can be defined as a purposeful damage in form of a physiological or psychological action that is directed against the self, other persons (student against student, student against teacher, teacher against teacher or teacher against student), or against objects (Steffgen, 2009). In contrast, bullying as a specific form of violence is marked as the systematic and repeated harassment of weaker people. It mostly emerges as a group phenomenon (Olweus, 2004, Smith, 2000). In summary, research studies on school violence differ strongly in the use of definitions and concepts.

During the last 20 years there has been extensive research on identifying risk factors for school violence (Benbenishty, Astor, Zeira, & Vinokur, 2002). The concept of school climate has received particular attention (Freiberg, 1999). Most importantly, the social climate in class and in school is assumed to have a significant effect on the prevalence of violence in schools (Janosz et al., 1998, Janosz et al., 2005).

Thus, different theoretical approaches have been considered. The ecological development theory allows conceptualizing the impact of school climate on school violence (Bronfenbrenner, 1974). School violence is here defined as a behavioral expression located in the microsystem, but strongly influenced by the mesosystem (interpretation of school climate). A distinction is made between school violence as an act (behavior) versus school climate (cognitive and emotion interpretation) as the subjective and objective reality of the school subsystem. Bridging the two concepts together, the psychological process (psychosocial) of school climate interpretation plays an important role in school violence.

Continual attempts have been undertaken to identify key components of school climate. Therefore, existing school climate taxonomies offer different opportunities to categorize various dimensions (Moos, 1979). Some categorizations are defining climate variables as affective, if they are related to interpersonal and social relations (e.g., school belonging, student participation), as cognitive or affective, when psychological processes are involved (e.g., school attachment, school fear), and as organizational when referring to school specific variables (e.g., school security, school management) (Fraser, 1994).

There is a broad consensus among researchers that school climate is an important factor that warrants further investigation with regard to violence (Carra, 2009, Gottfredson et al., 2005, Hernandez and Seem, 2004). However, the lack of clear definitions, taxonomies, and empirically-validated measures of school climate has resulted in a multitude of findings that are often difficult to interpret. The lack of quantitative reviews on the relationship between school climate and violence may, in part, be due to the conceptual uncertainty regarding the definition of school climate (Johnson, 2009).

Nevertheless, the purpose of the meta-analysis reported here is to investigate the relationship between school climate and school violence. Knowing the proliferation of concepts of school climate as well as of violence, there is still need for an integrative quantitative review that allows more clarity about the relationship between climate and violence. Thus, the primary aim of this study is to explore, by analyzing the statistical results of a collection of empirical research studies, if a relevant effect size could be detected between the relationship of school climate and school violence. Additionally, this meta-analysis' second target is to test if potential moderators may have an impact on the association of school climate and school violence.