Examining Perceptions of School Safety Strategies, School Climate, and Violence

“Examining Perceptions of School Safety Strategies, School Climate, and Violence” by Lesile Booren, Deborah handy, and Thomas Power aims to explore differences in perceptions of school climate/connection, school safety practices, and violence between students and teachers. This includes determining if school safety issues affect the perceived relevance of safety strategies. This article researches the perception of school safety, school connection, and school violence in faculty and students by using 184 student and 32 teacher surveys from one pacific northwest high school on the outskirts of a mid-to-large city. After this research was analyzed by describing and comparing student and teacher data, it was apparent that perceived school safety, connection, and violence vary between teachers and students. Teachers’ perception of connection and climate in the school was significantly higher than the students’ perception. This is then used to encourage safety programs and school climate programs to involve the students in determining appropriate safety measures rather than solely teachers.

This study was very interesting in terms of using it to determine how one can go about looking at students and teachers perception of violence and safety strategies in schools. However, it is even more interesting to see that this study could have been done using in-depth interviews, yet they opted for easily obtainable qualitative data using a five point scale, one being unimportant and five being very important. By using the scale and qualitative data they were able to easily and quickly compare the students and teachers perceptions.

 

Booren, L. M., D. J. Handy, and T. G. Power. “Examining Perceptions of School Safety Strategies, School Climate, and Violence.” Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 9.2 (2010): 171-87.