UC Irvine

School climate, broadly considered to be an individual's experience of school life, is especially important in early adolescence, when there is a known mismatch between the structure of middle schools and adolescents’ developing needs. Despite certain components of school climate being particularly developmentally salient in middle school, such as student autonomy and interpersonal relationships with peers and adults, not enough is known about the particular aspects of importance in these two areas, in order to better leverage them for school climate improvement. Further, historically marginalized students, such as students of color and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, often experience a school’s climate more negatively, making school climate an important educational equity issue. Additionally, research is limited on how climate functions in out-of-school spaces, such as extracurricular programs, where many adolescents spend significant time. Through three studies, this dissertations seeks to help address these gaps by expanding understanding of the impact of autonomy and interpersonal relationships on student outcomes, using approaches that are well suited to such research, but often underutilized: youth participatory action research (YPAR) and social network analysis (SNA), and including samples of majority low-income, Latine young adolescents. Designed in collaboration with a Title 1 middle school, Study One examines how students conceptualized school climate during the COVID-19 pandemic and how participating in a YPAR project impacted students’ feelings of belonging, mattering, and empowerment, as well as perceptions of school climate. Findings revealed that despite school climate including both at-home and in-person components during the spring of 2021, students felt the shared aspects of the school environment were the most salient and malleable to change through action research. Additionally, students had significant increases in their feelings of empowerment and mattering throughout their participation in the project. Using social network analysis, Study Two and Three explored how the peer and teacher-student relationships within a summer enrichment program relate to students’ feelings of belonging, mattering, connection, as well as perceptions of program climate. Both studies were conducted in collaboration with an out-of-school program focused on supporting would-be first generation college students. Results from Study Two revealed that higher amounts of close outgoing ties to peers were associated with higher feelings of mattering and connection, as well as more positive perceptions of program climate, and that students’ peer ties increased significantly over the summer. The findings from Study Three showed that ties to teachers also significantly increased over the course of the summer program and that higher amounts of outgoing ties to teachers were associated with stronger feelings of connection and more positive perceptions of program climate. Collectively, these three studies explore how young adolescents experience developmentally important areas of school climate – student autonomy and interpersonal relationships – using a sample of students who are often underrepresented in such research and including the less explored setting of out-of-school programs, offering directions for future research to improve school climate.