School climate policy and its relations with social and emotional competencies, bullying and cyberbullying in secondary education

Abstract

Some school policies are designed to promote a positive school climate, but little is known about their effectiveness. This study aims at describing the relation among the quality of school climate policy documents, social and emotional competencies, bullying and cyberbullying in students. This ex-post-facto cross-sectional and descriptive study was conducted using a survey of a representative sample of 2139 adolescents. School climate policy documents varied greatly in the quantity and quality of accomplishment in each criterion. According to the evidence from this study, promoting a positive school climate from the school climate policy document is worthy, as bullying perpetration could be reduced. The findings of this study have implications for school policy and educational reforms.