Perceptions of school climate by students and teachers in secondary schools in Croatia

Jelena Pavičić Vukičević, Marko Prpić and Irena Cajner Mraović

Summary:  School climate represents a relatively permanent quality of the school environment, which is based on a common perception of behaviour in school and is affected by its formal and informal organization, participants’ personalities, and the school management. The study involved 451 students and 102 teachers from secondary schools in the city of Zagreb. The study was performed using a questionnaire containing a school climate scale (Niobe Way 2007) and questions about the sociodemographic data of the participants. The aim of the study was to determine the differences between students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the school climate, and the gender of the participants was considered. The results showed that the teachers assessed all four dimensions of school climate more positively than the students. It was also found that gender is not a relevant factor in the teachers’ assessments of different aspects of the school climate but contributes to more positive assessments by female students compared to their male counterparts.