The Additive Impact of Multiple Levels of Kindergarten School Climate On Social Emotional Development

Introduction: School climate contributes to children’s social-emotional well-being; however, most studies have examined the impact of only one level of the school environment. School climate is multi-leveled, including the classroom climate as well as the larger school community, and these different levels may uniquely contribute to child outcomes (Suldo et al., 2012). The instructional and emotional support and behavioral management are influential aspects of the classroom (Mashburn et al., 2008). In addition, aspects of the school such as levels of student body achievement and adversity predict child outcomes (Thomas et al, 2008). There are only modest correlations between classroom quality and school context (Pianta et al., 2002), suggesting variability in exposure to different levels of school climate. Therefore, studies examining the additive impacts of both classroom quality and school norms are needed.

Methods: This study followed 323 Head Start children into 189 kindergarten classrooms in 108 schools. Measures assessed kindergarten school climate at two levels: 1) at the classroom level, observers coded instructional and emotional support (CLASS; La Paro & Pianta, 2003) and use of management, discipline, and emotion (TSRS; Domitrovich et al., 2000) and 2) at the school level, school records identified the percentage of students who qualified for reduced/free lunch (used as a proxy for school-level adversity; Hughes et al., 2005) and the school achievement level (number of students performing below basic on standard tests). Teacher ratings of children’s social-emotional behaviors began in prekindergarten and continued each elementary school year.

Results: Latent Class Analysis identified four latent classes of kindergarten school climate (G²=15.4, df=8, AIC=61.4) with 21% of children experiencing high classroom quality/high school risk, 34% in high classroom quality/low school risk, 24% in low classroom quality/high school risk, and 21% in low classroom quality/low school risk. Preliminary analyses revealed that children experiencing both high quality classrooms and low school risk demonstrated lower aggressive and withdrawn-internalizing behaviors as well as greater emotion regulation and social competence than children in the other school climates. Additional longitudinal analyses will provide further insight into the complexity of multiple levels of the school climate on children’s mental health.

Conclusions: These findings illustrate variability in the school climate that children experience at multiple levels. Understanding ways in which different combinations of classroom and school level contexts impact social-emotional development informs interventions to promote children’s mental health.