Just Environments Foster Virtues: A Longitudinal Assessment of School Climate Among Brazilian Youth

• In Event: Contextual Influences on Youth Character Development: Evidence from Kenya, Brazil, and Canada

Abstract

A good environment can help people believe they will be treated fairly and rewarded justly, which can empower youth to advocate for each other and develop community virtues. Authoritative classroom climate has been extensively studied as an important precursor to student behaviors and well-being (Luengo et al., 2017; Reaves et al., 2018) and is predictive of students’ personal belief in a just world (PBJW) (Thomas et al., 2019). PBJW is the extent to which people perceive their lives to be just and it is vital to establishing a sense of security and internal locus of control (Dalbert, 2009). The purpose of this study was to understand if students’ perceptions of justice (PBJW) functioned as a mediator between classroom climate and the virtues of bravery, fairness, and prosocial leadership. These are communal virtues thatt require people to stand up for one another, be agents of justice and see the well-being of the whole group. Past research has indicated that students with high PBJW are more likely to confront a bully (Fox et al., 2010), presumably because those with a high worldview of justice are motivated to seek justice since they believe it is attainable and have an internal locus of control to establish it.
Data from 2,260 fourth and fifth graders in 60 schools in Southern Brazil across two time points was collected in 2019 on school climate (Bear et al., 2016), PBJW (Dalbert, 1999), fairness and bravery (Park & Peterson, 2006) and prosocial leadership (Leadbeater et al., 2016). Path analyses were conducted to see if an authoritative school climate (high in support and structure), and teachers’ social-emotional learning practices would be predictive of later PBJW at time 2 (T2), which would in turn predict the virtues of fairness, bravery, and prosocial leadership at T2 (after controlling for the virtues at T1). We hypothesized that the effects of the school on the virtues of fairness, bravery, and prosocial leadership were mediated by PBJW. See Figure 2 for conceptual model. Three models were conducted, one for each virtue criterion variable. Analyses revealed that all three models fit the data well (χ2(6) = 65.45-101.38, p < .001, CFI = .98-.99, RMSEA = .06-.08 90% CI [.04, .09], SRMR = .02-03) and explained 29.1% of the variance in fairness and 27.1% of the variance in bravery, and 30.1% of the variance in prosocial leadership. There were significant indirect effects of authoritative school climate on fairness, bravery and prosocial leadership (β = .285; .283; .282, respectively), and significant indirect effects of SEL practices (β = .139; .144; .145, respectively).
This study demonstrates that the effect of a positive school climate on character development happens at least partially due to how the environment shapes youth’s experiences and expectations of justice. When students are immersed in a structured and warm environment and are scaffolded through SEL practices, they are more likely to believe their lives are fair and thus are more likely to stick up for others, seek justice, and be prosocial leaders.

Authors

• Kendra J Thomas, Hope College
  Presenting Author

• Josafá M. Da Cunha, Federal University of Parana
  Non-Presenting Author