Teaching Practices and School Climate: The Portuguese Students' Views

Abstract

Considering that organizational climate corresponds to what organizational actors mostly represent and with regard to their organization and taking into account that the most intense student experiences occur within the classroom, we wanted to know whether student views on teachers’ leadership and practices are related to what they perceive as school climate. The students came from schools all over Portugal, including Madeira. Regarding teaching practices, we focused our attention on the following dimensions: teaching; support to learning control; lack of support for individual work; use of methods that engage students differently in their work. As regards school climate, we considered the following dimensions: colleagues, teachers and class director relations; equity; safety; working conditions. Teachers’ leadership and educational practices have highly significant statistical relations with the different dimensions of school climate. Students stress that teachers who are democratic leaders use educational practices viewed as democratic classroom strategies. Moreover, the quality of the relationships they develop with their colleagues, teachers and class directors are pertinent to the consideration of a positive school climate. Equity, safety and working conditions also significantly contribute to the consideration of a positive school climate. The results show that teachers and school leaders need to continue to reflect upon classroom working practices.