Hand in hand: improvement in academic performance ,school climate and reducing violence

This study explores the causal link between school climate, school violence, and a school’s general academic performance over time using a school-level, cross-lagged panel autoregressive modeling design.

School-level secondary analysis of the California Healthy Kids Survey was conducted at three points in time. Findings offer credible evidence that a school’s overall improvement in academic performance is linked to reducing violence and enhancing a school’s climate.

In the discussion, the authors suggest that when strong efforts to improve academics are taken, schools may tend to include issues of climate and victimization as part of those academic reform efforts.