Mental Health Symptoms as Predictors of School Climate Evaluations among Middle School Latinx/Hispanic Students

ABSTRACT

A scarcity of counseling literature examines the impact that mental health symptoms have on school climate perceptions for students in transitional-aged settings, specifically Latinx/Hispanic students. We explored ways that mental health symptoms influenced perceptions of school climate among 216 Middle School Latinx/Hispanic students. The researchers found that participants who experienced greater symptoms associated with conduct problems (R² =.15) and aggression (R² =.02) reported a decreased perception of school climate. Implications for research and practice with Hispanic/Latinx students are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• School climate
• mental health
• Latinx
• Hispanic
• adolescents
• middle school

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.