Educational researchers and practitioners assert that supportive school and classroom climates can positively influence the academic outcomes of students, thus potentially reducing academic achievement gaps between students and schools of different socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. Nonetheless, scientific evidence establishing directional links and mechanisms between SES, school climate, and academic performance is inconclusive. This comprehensive review of studies dating back to the year 2000 examined whether a positive climate can successfully disrupt the associations between low SES and poor academic achievement. Positive climate was found to mitigate the negative contribution of weak SES background on academic achievement; however, most studies do not provide a basis for deducing a directional influence and causal relations. Additional research is encouraged to establish the nature of impact positive climate has on academic achievement and a multifaceted body of knowledge regarding the multilevel climate dimensions related to academic achievement.

An ecological perspective was used to predict school violence from a number of variables describing the students and their families based on nationally representative sample of 10,400 students in grades 7-11 in 162 schools across Israel. Self-administered anonymous questionnaires that included a scale for reporting victimization by serious and moderate physical violence, threats, and verbal-social victimization were filled out during class. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) examined the relationships between students' reports of victimization and student level variables (gender, age) and the school-level variables--cultural affiliation (Jewish vs. Arab), the socio-economic status (SES) of the school's neighborhood and students' families, school and class size, school level (junior high vs. high), and school climate. Variance between schools accounted for 9-15% of the variance in student victimization (major factors being school climate characteristics and percent of boys at the school). Boys reported higher victimization than girls for all forms of school violence. Students in junior high schools reported more victimization than high school students. Higher levels of victimization were reported in overcrowded classes, while school size was not associated with students' reports of victimization. Although there were almost no differences between Jewish and Arab schools in students' reports of victimization, the SES of the school's neighborhood and students did have a moderate effect. The discussion highlights the importance of improving school climate and the need to allocate more resources to schools in low SES contexts in order to protect students from school violence.

While the long-term effects of combat trauma on veterans have been studied extensively, its impact on veterans' wives has yet to be investigated. This study examined the implications of combat-induced psychopathology--wartime combat stress reaction (CSR) and current posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--in a sample of 205 wives of Israeli combat veterans of the 1982 Lebanon war. Results show that both CSR and PTSD were associated with increased psychiatric symptoms in the wives. In addition, current PTSD was particularly found to contribute to impaired social relations among veterans' wives in a broad range of contexts, from inner feelings of loneliness, through impaired marital and family relations, and extending to the wider social network. Implications of these findings for treatment and further research are discussed.