Contextual Predictors of Students' Perceptions of an Open Classroom Climate

• In Event: 25.062 - Reform and the Social Studies

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine how school and classroom contexts relate to students’ perceptions of their classrooms as open for political discussion. Using multilevel analyses of data from European countries in the IEA Civics and Citizenship Education Study, students with stronger senses of collective efficacy in working with peers and who have more positive student-teacher relationships perceive their classes as more open to discussion. These predictors are significant at both the individual and the school level; further, when the average level of collective efficacy in the school is high, an individual student’s gender or own personal sense of efficacy is less related to their classroom climate perceptions. We discuss these findings in light of deliberative democratic theory.

Authors

• Lies Maurissen

• Ellen Claes, University of Leuven

• Carolyn Elizabeth Barber, University of Missouri - Kansas City