Exploring the Prospective Relationship Between School Safety Climate and Adolescents Depression: A Multilevel Approach

Year:
Reference

Yale-Soulière G, Brière F, Olivier E, Archambault K, Archambault I, Janosz M. (2025). Exploring the Prospective Relationship Between School Safety Climate and Adolescents Depression: A Multilevel Approach. Journal of School Violence, 26.

Abstract

This article examines if the school safety climate is associated with depressive symptoms in students, beyond direct violence exposure. 5,262 students from 71 secondary schools were followed annually. We assessed safety climate using the Socio-educational environment questionnaire and derived school-level (Level 2; average of student scores) and student-level (Level 1; group mean-centered scores) safety measures, and depressive symptoms using the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression. Multilevel regression analysis revealed that individual perceptions of safety strongly correlate with depressive symptoms, especially among girls, while no significant link was found at the school level. This study shows that personal perceptions of safety are better predictors of depressive symptoms than the general safety climate of schools, emphasizing the importance of further research to explore how insecurity affects students differently.

DOI