High School Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders Perceptions of School Climate

Abstract

Students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBDs), particularly those in high school, present myriad challenges for educators. Although research suggests that students with EBDs experience schooling differently than their peers, few studies have examined differences in perceptions of school climate. School climate is a multidimensional construct consisting of students’ perceptions of physical and social school environments. To address this gap, we leveraged school climate data from more than 350,000 high school students, including more than 5,000 with or at risk for EBDs, in Georgia. We estimated a series of multilevel models and found that students with or at risk for EBDs consistently report more negative perceptions of school climate than their peers across all school climate domains. We also examined whether individualized education program (IEP) services affected perceptions for students with EBDs, finding more positive perceptions for some domains for students with IEP services for EBDs compared with students with EBDs, but no IEP services. Implications and limitations are then discussed.

Students with disabilities' perceptions of school climate: A systematic review

“…Of these studies, three provided information regarding the types of disabilities that were represented in their sample (Jones & Bodtker, 1999; Rifenbark et al, 2021; Sakiz, 2017). Five studies specifically analyzed school climate perceptions of students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD; Collins et al, 2022; Gage et al, 2021; La Salle et al, 2018; Marsh et al, 2019; Ryabov, 2020), and one study interviewed students with intellectual disability (ID; Lopez et al, 2016).…”

“…No studies reported information for transgender or non-binary identifying students. Four studies reported the race/ethnicity of their sample, which included students who identified as Black (4294; 49%), White (3178; 36%), Latinx/Hispanic (887; 10%), Asian/Pacific Islander (59; 1%), Native American (51; 1%), two or more race/ethnicities (154; 2%), and other (145; 2%; Collins et al, 2022; Gage et al, 2021; La Salle et al, 2018; Rifenbark et al, 2021).…”

“…Ten studies provided grade-level information, with three sampling across all grades (Kirksey & Sattin-Bajaj, 2021; Marsh et al, 2019; Sanders et al, 2018). Elementary students were sampled in four studies (Kirksey & Sattin-Bajaj, 2021; Marsh et al, 2019; Sakiz 2017; Sanders et al, 2018), middle school students were sampled in six studies (Collins et al, 2022; Kirksey & Sattin-Bajaj, 2021; La Salle et al, 2018; Marsh et al, 2019; Sakiz, 2017; Sanders et al, 2018), and high school students were sampled in six studies (Gage et al, 2019, 2021; Kirksey & Sattin-Bajaj, 2021; Marsh et al, 2019; Rifenbark et al, 2021; Sanders et al, 2018). Lopez and colleagues (2016) reported surveying students in secondary schools, which often includes students ages 12 to 16.…”

Exploring Extracurricular Activity Participation, School Engagement, and Social Competence for Students With Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

“…Students with EBD are less engaged in school than their peers (Gage et al, 2021) and demonstrate poor social competence (Gresham, 2015). As such, practices associated with increased performance in these domains for students with EBD may hold promise for improving concomitant short-term outcomes (e.g., academic performance) and reduce long-term negative consequences (e.g., school dropout).…”

Do Perceptions of School Climate Improve in High School for Students With Disabilities?

“…Many studies have found that SWDs had a variety of negative school climate perceptions, such as lower perceptions of feeling welcome and higher perceptions of bullying and harassment than GENs, with additional heterogeneity based on disability classification (Stiefel et al, 2018), lower emotional inclusion and academic self-concept than GENs (DeVries et al, 2018), and lower perceptions of school climate than GENs for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (Gage et al, 2020;Salle et al, 2018. In addition, researchers have published many studies documenting bullying and victimization of SWDs, or specific classifications of SWDs, which, while not reporting on SWD perceptions, might be linked to negative perceptions of these aspects of school climate (American Educational Research Association, 2013; Espelage, 2015;Gil & da Costa, 2010;Maag & Katsiyannis, 2012;Rose et al, 2009;Whitney et al, 1994). SWD academic performance is generally lower than that of their GEN peers (NCES, 2019b), and this also may result in negative perceptions of academic climate.…”