School climate in LMICs: Developments, Challenges and Opportunities
Abstract
Most school climate studies to date have focused on high-income countries. As such, there is limited understanding of the concepts and constructs that encompass school climate in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This presentation draws from a systematic review of empirical studies that assessed school climate quantitatively in LMICs as well as field works in South Asia. Domains of school climate were well represented across existing frameworks (e.g., safety, teaching and learning, relationships, and institutional environment). The findings indicate a greater need for research in the lowest resource settings and a need to connect school climate to other important policy issues such as school-based violence and gender inequality. The presentation will open up discussions on the challenges as well as areas for attention and work in this field.
The video can be viewed here:
The event is free and open to the public so please share with others who may be interested (they do not need to be a member of AERA or the SIG).
Dr. Thapa is a senior lecturer in the International Educational Development Program and an instructor in the Education Entrepreneurship program at Penn GSE. Prior to Penn GSE, Dr. Thapa worked as a research director at the National School Climate Center (NSCC). Dr. Thapa has also served as vice president and representative to the United Nations for the Institute of Global Education (IGE), an NGO that has consultative status with the Economic & Social Council of the United Nations.
https://www.gse.upenn.edu/faculty/amrit-thapa
Some recent papers:
Francis Huang
Professor / SIG Program Chair
My research interests include school climate, school violence, and threat assessment. My methodological interests focus on the analysis of clustered data (multilevel modeling).