Students' perceptions of school climate and school violence

Abstract

The aim of the research was to examine the relationship between perceptions of school climate among students and the occurrence of school violence, and to investigate the existence of differences in school climate perceptions and the occurrence of violence depending on students' gender, the grade they are in, their academic achievement at the end of the previous grade, and parents' educational background. The instruments School Climate Scale and PRONA were used. Correlation analysis indicates a significant negative correlation between the perception of the school climate as supportive and a tendency towards violent behavior, as well as a positive correlation between the perception of the school climate as unsupportive and a tendency towards violent behavior and exposure to peer violence. A significant difference in the perception of school climate was established depending on the school grade, with sixthand seventh-grade students more frequently perceiving the school climate as supportive than eighth graders. As for peer violence, significant differences were established depending on students' sex, grade and academic achievement: a tendency towards vilolent behavior, as well as exposure to school violence were more common among male students, students with lower academic achievement (with average grades of two or three out of five) and eighth-grade students.