Adolescents with emotional and behavioural disorders (EBD) continue to struggle in the school environment. They may have difficulty connecting to their school environment as their engagement in challenging behaviour may have led to frequent school removal and high rates of school dropout, resulting in a breakdown of their school connectedness. The purpose of this study was to evaluate levels of school connectedness for adolescents with EBD attending self-contained classrooms and compare them to adolescents in general education. The School Connectedness Questionnaire (SCQ), measuring school bonding, school attachment, school engagement, and school climate, was administered to 50 students with EBD and to 50 general education students (n = 100). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted. The results indicated that of the four domains of school connectedness, students with EBD reported significantly higher levels of school climate. These youth also reported significant differences on four specific items representing three of the four construct domains. The results indicate that adolescents with EBD may experience school differently. Researchers should continue to examine specially designed programs for students with EBD that emphasise explicit behavioural and academic expectations and social and emotional skill development and its impact on school connectedness for adolescents with EBD.

The purpose of this study was to examine the association between life satisfaction and positive student-teacher and peer relationships. Further, we aimed to test the mediating effects of student resilience in a multilevel model. The data were collected from elementary students in South Korea. To examine the mediating effects of student resilience, multilevel structural equation modelling was conducted. The results indicated that schools with positive student-teacher relationships correlated with higher life satisfaction for children. This relationship was fully mediated by student resilience. However, the mediating effects of student resilience in the relationship between peer relationships and life satisfaction was found to be at the individual level rather than by school climate. Practical implications on ways to improve students’ life satisfaction within the school and classroom settings are discussed.

Many youth participate in extracurricular activities, and research has linked activity participation with school engagement and academic success. Social-ecological theory suggests that the social contexts of different types of extracurricular activities may differentially affect student outcomes. Yet, there is scant research examining the relation between various extracurricular activities and student outcomes. The current study seeks to address this gap by exploring how participation in three activities (sports, clubs, and arts), and combinations of these activities are associated with perceptions of school climate, using multilevel modelling. Participants included 15,004 high school students from 28 schools across 11 states in the United States. Findings suggest that students involved in extracurricular activities have more favourable perceptions of social-emotional security, adult support, student support, and school connectedness. However, these perceptions vary by activity type and combination, and do not appear to have a stacked effect in which involvement in more activities yields more favourable outcomes. We conclude that extracurricular activity participation may serve as a mechanism to promote a positive school climate. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Covert bullying behaviours are at least as distressing for young people as overt forms of bullying, but often remain unnoticed or unacknowledged by adults. This invisibility is increased in schools by inattention to covert bullying in policy and practice, and limited staff understanding and skill to address covert behaviours. These factors can lead to a school culture that appears to tolerate and thus inadvertently encourages covert bullying. This study explores these dynamics in Australian primary and secondary schools, including the attitudes of over 400 staff towards covert bullying, their understanding of covert bullying behaviours, and their perceived capacity to address these behaviours both individually and at a whole-school level. While most respondents felt a responsibility to intervene in bullying situations, nearly 70% strongly agreed with statements that staff need more training to address covert bullying. Only 10% of respondents described their current whole-school strategies as very effective in reducing covert bullying, and fewer than 40% reported their school had a bullying policy that explicitly referred to covert bullying. These results suggest an urgent need for sustainable professional development to enhance school staff understanding, skills and self-efficacy to address covert bullying through school policy and practice, and the need to identify and consolidate effective strategies to better address these behaviours.