Abstract
Children’s and adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment has been studied in relation to various factors at an individual and system level aiming at identifying the variables that contribute, as protective factors, to the promotion of their social and emotional health and covitality. This study examined the link between covitality, which describes the co-occurrence of basic positive psychology constructs, and the perceptions of Greek junior high school students regarding school climate. The sample consisted of 745 adolescent students (mean age 14.4 years) from randomly selected junior high schools in the broader area of Athens, Greece. The Social-Emotional Health Survey–Secondary (SEHS-S), CHKS Supplemental School Climate Module, students’ academic performance, and a questionnaire of socio-demographic data were used. Findings indicated the existence of statistically significant relations between adolescents’ perceptions of social and emotional health and school climate. Furthermore, significant differences were found in relation to school performance and parents’ unemployment. Conditional process analyses showed that several school climate dimensions (i.e. Support for learning, Discipline, and Order, Peer relations, Social-emotional support, Environment) moderated the direct effect of school performance on covitality. Furthermore, father’s unemployment added to the prediction of covitality by school climate. The results provide a better understanding of adolescents’ development and highlight the critical role of positive school climate on students’ psychosocial adjustment providing implications for developing effective interventions in school communities.
Highlights
The above indicators have been found to include four specific dimensions: (a) belief-in-self, that is related to healthy psychosocial competence and reduced experience of negative emotions, (b) emotional competence, that is associated with the absence of internalized emotional difficulties, (c) engage in living that describes engagement in activities which in turn provides positive emotions, satisfaction of life and feeling of joy and (d) belief-in-others, that refers to people’s feeling that they are supported and cared by others across various contexts (Furlong et al, 2009; Werner, 2013)
The goal of the present study was to investigate the perceptions of junior high school students about covitality and school climate with an emphasis on the role of several factors in shaping these perceptions
The main hypothesis in this study was that a more positive school climate has the potential to limit the negative impact http://epublishing.ekt.gr | e-Publisher: EKT | Downloaded at 08/11/2021 17:07:20 |
Summary
The above indicators have been found to include four specific dimensions: (a) belief-in-self, that is related to healthy psychosocial competence and reduced experience of negative emotions, (b) emotional competence, that is associated with the absence of internalized emotional difficulties, (c) engage in living that describes engagement in activities which in turn provides positive emotions, satisfaction of life and feeling of joy and (d) belief-in-others, that refers to people’s feeling that they are supported and cared by others across various contexts (peers, school, family) (Furlong et al, 2009; Werner, 2013). A large number of studies suggest that the socio-economic situation during childhood is an important environmental indicator that often contributes to the occurrence of psychosocial adjustment difficulties in adult life (Galobardes et al, 2006a, 2006b). Τhe low socio-economic level of the family is often associated with psychosocial adjustment difficulties. Economic hardship is linked to difficulties in various aspects of covitality of children and adolescents, such as bio-health, academic performance, and cognitive, emotional, and social development. These difficulties seem to be associated with and/or enhance mental health problems, and vice versa (Hanson et al, 2011)
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