Perceptions of Emotional and Physical Safety Among Boarding Students and Associations With School Bullying

Abstract

Perceptions of a safe and supportive school environment are imperative to the well-being of all students. Positive perceptions of school safety and supports may be especially important for students attending boarding schools, given that many of these students live on school grounds. However, these experiences have rarely been studied for boarding school students. The current study aimed to address this gap in the literature by investigating relations among perceptions of school-wide bullying and physical and emotional safety among a sample of students from one boarding school (N = 358). School mental health supports were also examined as a moderator in the relation between school-wide bullying and school safety. Results indicated that school-wide bullying was significantly related to both emotional and physical safety—although more strongly related to physical bullying—for both male and female students. School mental health supports were a significant moderator, or buffer, in the relation between school-wide bullying and emotional safety for males. Further research is needed with larger and more diverse samples of boarding students to increase generalizability of these findings. Impact Statement A positive school climate is essential for the well-being of students attending boarding schools, yet this has rarely been studied among boarding students. The findings of this study contribute to this important gap in the literature and suggest that boarding students’ perceptions of school-wide bullying are related to feeling both physically and emotionally unsafe. Male, but not female, students who perceive the school supports students’ mental health reported feeling emotionally safe at school regardless of prevalence of bullying.