School social work practice that targets students and schools for change is the most effective approach in removing barriers to learning for all students. However, research on the profession has found that school social workers tend to focus on traditional clinical work with individual students and families, often to the exclusion of broader system level interventions. Working to create a positive school climate is an avenue for social workers to facilitate school-wide change. This research explores how school social workers employ a practice approach that embraces a broad clinical framework specifically including skills associated with building a positive school climate. The study also analyzes how specific school social worker characteristics are associated with the performance of practice tasks related to enhancing school climate. The project examines data collected from social workers practicing in Texas public schools as part of an exploratory, mixed method survey. The analysis utilized descriptive statistics and a hierarchical cluster analysis to group the school social workers with similar response patterns for the practice task variables. Descriptive statistics revealed that 93% of the school social workers participated in at least one of eight general practice tasks related to school climate dimensions and 77% participated in at least four of the eight. The cluster analysis yielded a solution that grouped the participants into four clusters. Once the clusters were profiled, three school social worker characteristics were found to significantly relate to the completion of tasks associated with school climate: perception of autonomy, job structure and years of experience. The results show widespread use of practice skills that target multiple dimensions of school climate. The findings lend support to the feasibility of participating in the school climate related tasks across school settings and school social worker characteristics. The research findings place school social worker expertise in a school reform framework and captures how they can contribute to school-wide change within their routine practice duties. / text

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The objective of this study was to explore the link between school climate and bullying behaviour through a case study of two high schools. Grade 10 students received the two day Cross-Cultural Conflict Resolution (XCCR) Module initiated by YOUCAN. Phase I of this study involved the development of an XCCR Logic Model, which aimed to clarify the objectives and key elements of the XCCR Module. Phase II involved the in depth analysis of the XCCR Module through an 84-item survey and qualitative semi-structured interviews with school and program staff. Data from this study did not indicate any changes in bullying behaviour or school climate between pre-and post-implementation. This study highlights a need to incorporate measures for program adherence and program fidelity in future studies. The results of this study provided two practical contributions, an XCCR Logic Model and information about bullying and school climate for the participating schools.

Strong group affiliations based on race have been found in children at a very young age (Aboud, 1988) and may lead to a higher risk of involvement in bullying for certain racial groups. Little research, however, has addressed the relationship among bullying, race, and immigrant status in a Canadian sample. As well, few studies have directly examined racial bullying and victimization. Thus, the two studies in the current project aim to examine race and immigrant status as individual risk factors for bullying involvement, while also examining the individual- and school-level factors associated with racial bullying. In Chapter Two, an empirical examination of the relationship among race, immigrant status, and bullying and victimization in adolescence reveals that racial minority adolescents experience racial bullying. Immigrant status, however, does not appear to predict victimization, but it may be a risk factor for bullying others. In Chapter Three, a multilevel investigation of racial bullying and victimization at the individual and school levels indicates that African-Canadian students are at risk of engaging in both racial bullying and victimization, and that being male is also associated with participation in this type of bullying. At the school level, school climate is not found to account for the differences in racial bullying and victimization across schools, but increased school support is associated with decreased racial bullying in schools with more teacher diversity. Together, the results of the current research clarify the roles of race and immigrant status in bullying and victimization, but these results also raise important concerns and further questions regarding possible interventions in schools for students who engage in racial bullying and racial victimization. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-16 12:29:46.885

Bullying is a serious and common problem in Canadian schools. Despite three decades of comprehensive research on this complex behavioural problem, much remains to be understood. The general purpose of the current studies was to comprehensively examine bullying from an ecological perspective and the roles that school climate and peer processes play in the development of this behaviour, in order to elucidate mechanisms for intervention. The first study was a multilevel analysis of the relative importance of individual and school characteristics in bullying in Canadian schools. In a second study, we examined the experiences of peers who witnessed bullying incidents in order to investigate whether there were factors that predicted a decrease in witness behaviour. Finally, we conducted an evaluation of a peer-mediated bullying prevention program using a pre/post controlled study design. We assessed the impact of this program on behaviour, socioemotional skills, and school climate. Overall, our findings were consistent with the view that bullying is a problem of destructive relationships that needs to be addressed from this perspective. We found that relationships among peers and adults at school contributed to the overall climate of a school, and an overall climate of peer connectedness was associated with less bullying. Provictim attitudes and emotional supportiveness predicted change in bystander behaviour, although the nature of these changes differed for boys and girls. Finally, we did not find evidence of an effect of the prevention program on bullying behaviour or school climate, and we discuss the lack of findings with regard to program implementation and future program evaluations. This research has implications for understanding the influence of peers and peer group processes on the development of bullying. It is our hope that these studies will contribute important information to the bullying literature to expand our knowledge of the ways in which school climate and peers affect and are affected by bullying and victimization. In turn, this information may help to inform intervention efforts and encourage future program evaluation research and research examining the mechanisms by which we might mobilize peers to behave in ways that could help to stop bullying and victimization. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-21 11:33:00.394

The objective of this study was to explore the link between school climate and bullying behaviour through a case study of two high schools. Grade 10 students received the two day Cross-Cultural Conflict Resolution (XCCR) Module initiated by YOUCAN. Phase I of this study involved the development of an XCCR Logic Model, which aimed to clarify the objectives and key elements of the XCCR Module. Phase II involved the in depth analysis of the XCCR Module through an 84-item survey and qualitative semi-structured interviews with school and program staff. Data from this study did not indicate any changes in bullying behaviour or school climate between pre-and post-implementation. This study highlights a need to incorporate measures for program adherence and program fidelity in future studies. The results of this study provided two practical contributions, an XCCR Logic Model and information about bullying and school climate for the participating schools.

This study investigated the relationship between two elementary building administrators and their teaching faculty with regard to leadership styles of the principal. Leadership analysis determined that one principal had a transformational leadership and one principal who had a transactional leadership style. <br>A survey assessed the perceptions of elementary teachers regarding each school's climate, and their own empowerment resulting in teacher efficacy. Results were not congruent with the review of literature. <br>The school led by the transactional principal underwent an intervention for a twelve-week period during which changes were made based on the data from the pre-tests administered. These interventions reflected a more transformational leadership approach. The results of a second administration of surveys after interventions by the principal showed limited results in improving teacher efficacy and school climate. The researcher also gained insights as to future studies and implications for practice such as replication of the study using a longer intervention period and a larger sample within one school or more schools in the study. / School of Education / Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program for Education Leaders (IDPEL) / EdD / Dissertation

This study described how principal leadership, consisting of both capacities and practices, advanced a climate of academic optimism among faculty to improve the achievement of all students including those from low-income family households within two public elementary schools in southern Arizona. Participants in the multiple embedded replication case study included one principal, five teachers, and one parent from each school. Semi-structured interviews, school observations, and document analysis were incorporated within the study. Findings revealed that peer observations helped build collective efficacy among teachers and required principal leadership to occur in a systemic manner. Interpretive analysis further demonstrated that principal leadership was valuable in developing academic emphasis within the school. Moreover, the principal was a powerful role model for cultivating trust between teachers and parents. An unexpected finding was that the leadership capacities and practices were not as precisely divided or separated as indicated by the conceptual framework. Rather, the capacities and practices were highly interrelated and mutually reinforcing. Based upon the analysis of patterns across cases, it was determined that the principals’ leadership capacities and practices influenced the climate of academic optimism. As a specific example, the principals studied utilized the bureaucracies within their schools to enable the work of teachers. Furthermore, the principals’ capacities of self-awareness and internalized moral perspective guided their vision of schooling. Compelling evidence was found for each capacity and practice detailed within the conceptual framework, and they were demonstrated in unique ways based on the specific circumstances of the site as well as the principal’s individual leadership style. The conceptual generalization from this interpretative qualitative case study suggests that, in terms of principal leadership, both “Who you are, and what you do, matter.”

The objective of this study was to explore the link between school climate and bullying behaviour through a case study of two high schools. Grade 10 students received the two day Cross-Cultural Conflict Resolution (XCCR) Module initiated by YOUCAN. Phase I of this study involved the development of an XCCR Logic Model, which aimed to clarify the objectives and key elements of the XCCR Module. Phase II involved the in depth analysis of the XCCR Module through an 84-item survey and qualitative semi-structured interviews with school and program staff. Data from this study did not indicate any changes in bullying behaviour or school climate between pre-and post-implementation. This study highlights a need to incorporate measures for program adherence and program fidelity in future studies. The results of this study provided two practical contributions, an XCCR Logic Model and information about bullying and school climate for the participating schools.

archives@tulane.edu / Exposure to violence among children and adolescents has been linked to negative outcomes including posttraumatic stress disorder, externalizing problems, low academic achievement, and impaired social-emotional adjustment. Aggressive behaviors specifically are shown to be strongly predicted by both direct and indirect violence exposure. Aggressive behaviors have consequences on later adjustment, making the identification of protective factors imperative to bolster support for children whose environments are affected by violence. The current study examined the effect of neighborhood violence on overt aggression as well as the potential of school climate variables to buffer the impact of violence on students’ aggressive behaviors. It was hypothesized that higher rates of neighborhood violence in the year preceding the study would predict higher levels of aggressive behaviors reported by teachers and students. It was further hypothesized that student perceptions of school safety, teacher-student relationships, and academic engagement would moderate this relationship, such that the relationship between neighborhood violence and aggressive behaviors would be lower in the context of positive school climate indicators than in the context of negative school climate indictors. Results did not support either hypothesis. However, results suggested that teacher-student relationships may reduce aggressive behaviors over time, which provides promising evidence that can inform teacher efforts and schoolwide opportunities to mitigate negative outcomes for their students. / 1 / Lea Petrovic