Cross-Cultural Differences of Parental Perception of School Climate Between the United States and China

• In Event: International Perspectives on the Conceptualizations and Effects of School Climate

Abstract

Guided by the cultural-ecological model of school climate, this study examined the psychometric properties of the modified version of Delaware School Climate–Home version (DSCS-H) and compared parental perception of school climate based on 999 Chinese and 1,251 U.S. parents’ reports. The DSCS-H was best supported by a second-order factor model in both samples and a full measurement invariance across countries was achieved. When latent means of the scores of overall school climate and sub-factors scores were compared, parents reported nonsignificant cross-cultural difference on the overall school climate scores. However, U.S. parents perceived the Clarity of Expectation subscale more favorably than Chinese parents, whereas Chinese parents reported higher scores on the subscales of Student-Student Relation and Teacher-Home Communication.

Authors

• Chunyan Yang, University of California, Berkeley

• Maggie Chan, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Chun Chen, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Raymond Quang Vo, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Carmen Lai, University of California - Santa Barbara