Developing a Student Experience Conceptual Framework: A School Climate and Ecological Systems Perspective

• In Event: Considering School Practices and Student Experience Within the School Climate Conversation

Abstract

Research on school climate is signaling the need for a conceptualization of student experience. The definition of school climate is based, in part, on patterns of students’ experience of school life, and school improvement efforts are grounded in ecological systems theories. While ecological systems theory has focused extensively on the concept of experience, there is little, if any, substantive research that focuses specifically on a conception of student experience within the context of school climate research and through the lens of race and culture. This paper explores what a conceptualization of student experience might look like using an ecological systems perspective and describes its potential as a conceptual and analytic variable in school climate research.

Author

• Samantha Murray, Star Cypress Partners