Content area
Abstract
For many years educators knew that each school had an environment that was unique into itself. In trying to explain this uniqueness, called school climate, practitioners and researchers alike fabricated various definitions. Most of the definitions appeared to have no common basis. The primary purpose of this study was to determine what was "said" in the content of the various definitions found in a survey of the available literature. The survey for the definitions was restricted to the literature indicating studies of school climate at the elementary and secondary levels. Twenty-seven different definitions of school climate were found. The words in the definitions were content analyzed by means of a difference of proportion statistic.
Findings. Twenty-six or 96 percent of the definitions were deduced to have had no theoretical basis to them. The units of the remaining one matched the two dimensions of the Getzels-Guba General Model.
Conclusions. The results of this study substantiates the concerns some of the writers and researchers of school climate have had about the confusion which exists in the definitions of school climate. Most of the definitions did not describe school climate as a result of an interaction between person and environment but rather as the result of an interaction between the roles of the teachers and administrator.
Recommendations. Using the findings and conclusions of the study as a basis the following recommendations are suggested: (1) Include a definition of climate in articles or reports written by researchers. (2) A course of study emphasizing the importance of school climate be required by prospective teachers and administrators. (3) Educators should learn to use the media more effectively. (4) Educators should learn how to lobby the legislature. (5) Design a computerized simulation model using the variables suggested by Anderson.
