The moderating effect of school climate on the relationship between school belonging and delinquent behaviour in high school students

Abstract

With this study I investigated the moderating effect of school climate on the relationship between adolescents’ school belonging and  their delinquent behaviour. For this purpose, the relational survey method, 1 of the quantitative research methods, and the bio-ecological  framework was used. The participants in the study were a total of 698 high school students, of whom 326 were female and 372  were male. The school belonging scale, delinquent behaviour scale, and school climate scale were used in the study. The IBM  Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Amos version 25 program was used to analyse the quantitative data obtained. I applied  correlation analysis and moderating analysis to determine the relationships between high school students’ perceptions of school climate,  their school belonging, and their delinquent behaviour. According to the research results, a significant and negative relationship  exists between students’ school belonging levels and delinquent behaviour. The results also show that school climate moderated the  negative relationship between school belonging and delinquent behaviour. The school climate strengthens the significant negative  relationship between school belonging and delinquent behaviour. Based on the findings, I suggest that educators should actively  monitor and improve the psychosocial aspects of the school climate to increase students’ school belonging and reduce their delinquent  behaviour.