Perceptions of School Climate Shape Adolescent Health Behavior: A Longitudinal Multischool Study
ABSTRACT Background Adolescent behaviors and academic outcomes are thought to be shaped by school climate. We sought to identify longitudinal associations between school climate measures and downstream health and academic outcomes. Methods Data from a longitudinal survey of public high school studen...
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Published in | The Journal of school health Vol. 93; no. 6; pp. 475 - 484 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Malden, USA
Wiley Periodicals, Inc
01.06.2023
Wiley Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | ABSTRACT
Background
Adolescent behaviors and academic outcomes are thought to be shaped by school climate. We sought to identify longitudinal associations between school climate measures and downstream health and academic outcomes.
Methods
Data from a longitudinal survey of public high school students in Los Angeles were analyzed. Eleventh‐grade health and academic outcomes (dependent variables, eg, substance use, delinquency, risky sex, bullying, standardized exams, college matriculation), were modeled as a function of 10th‐grade school climate measures (independent variables: institutional environment, student‐teacher relationships, disciplinary style), controlling for baseline outcome measures and student/parental covariates.
Results
The 1114 student respondents (87.8% retention), were 46% male, 90% Latinx, 87% born in the United States, and 40% native English speakers. Greater school order and teacher respect for students were associated with lower odds of multiple high risk behaviors including 30‐day alcohol use (odds ratio [OR] 0.81; 95% confidence interval [CI] [0.72, 0.92] and OR 0.73; [0.62, 0.85]) and 30‐day cannabis use (OR 0.74; [0.59, 0.91] and OR 0.76; [0.63, 0.92]). Neglectful disciplinary style was associated with multiple poor health and academic outcomes while permissive disciplinary style was associated with favorable academic outcomes.
Implications for School Health Policy, Practice, and Equity
School health practitioners may prospectively leverage school environment, teacher‐student relationships, and disciplinary style to promote health and learning.
Conclusions
Our findings identify specific modifiable aspects of the school environment with critical implications for life course health. |
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Bibliography: | Michelle Y Ko, Sofia M Rosenberg, and Benjamin P L Meza have contributed equally to this work and share first authorship. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (R01DA033362) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (UA6MC32492). The funders had no role in the study's design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of the data, writing of the manuscript, or decision to submit the article for publication. Furthermore, we would like to thank past and present members of the RISE Up study team and Los Angeles school partners who have made this work possible. ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0022-4391 1746-1561 |
DOI: | 10.1111/josh.13274 |