Associations between the social climate in school, classroom and school class, peer victimization, bullying and student engagement over time

The first aim of this project is to examine how school climate, classroom climate and class climate are associated with bullying and peer-victimization over time.

A second aim is to examine how school climate, classroom climate, class climate, and bullying and peer victimization are associated with student engagement over time.

A 3-year, longitudinal, mixed-methods, multiphase design will be used to ensure the inclusion of students’ voices and perspectives in the investigation of eventual longitudinal links.

Quantitative data will be gathered through a bi-annual online survey (Nov & May, in the same school year) targeting approximately 6000 students (4th to 9th grade) nested in about 200 classes within 30 compulsory schools.

Qualitative data will be gathered from 18 focus groups, each with 6 students (target of 108 students), to be interviewed annually throughout the course of the project.

The qualitative data, collected from each focus group interview will be used to inform, explain and elaborate the ongoing quantitative findings.

The project will build on an iterative process between the quantitative and qualitative dimensions, throughout the whole project, making it possible for new questions to be investigated and answered as they arise. The qualitative data will be subjected to explorative thematic analyses.