The School Environment Is Better Than We Think

When we hear about secondary schools, it is often to show us what is wrong—to point out the problems, shortcomings or negative climate that may exist within them.

Yet that is not what our survey, conducted among 514 secondary school students from across the province, tells us.

First, the school’s social climate

When asked to assess the social climate of their school, students gave their school an average score of 72.1. That is more than an acceptable rating. At the very least, it is higher than the rating the general population gives to the humanity of our society (65.8).

Next, students’ attitudes

After assessing the social climate of their school, we asked students, using the same scale, to assess their own attitude. The average score was 76.5—almost the same score (77.0) that the general population gives itself for its own personal humanity.

While the gap between our assessment of our personal humanity and our collective humanity is 11.2 points, the gap among secondary school students between their own attitude and the social climate of their school is only 4.9 points.

In other words, secondary school students are much more satisfied, or less critical, with the “humanity” of their school than the general population is with the collective humanity of our society.

These are not the kinds of findings that usually emerge when we talk about our schools. And that is somewhat unfortunate, because overall, and despite difficult circumstances, our schools are doing a good job.

Some noteworthy differences

Obviously, both in the assessment of the school’s social climate and in students’ attitudes, we see some differences.

For example, the school’s social climate is rated more positively by students who feel safe, by those living in the Montreal area, and by students from cultural communities.