Social support and school engagement in adolescence: moderated mediation models of life satisfaction and school climate

Abstract

Little is known about the mediating and moderating mechanisms that underlie the relationship between social support and school engagement. The present study aims to analyse: (1) the mediating role of life satisfaction on the association between social support (from teachers and friends) and school engagement; and (2) the moderating role of school climate in the relationships which exist between social support, life satisfaction and school engagement. Participants were 1397 adolescents (12–16 years old). Analyses were performed using the PROCESSv.4 macro and SPSSv.27. The results reveal that life satisfaction fully mediates the influence of support from friends on school engagement, and partially mediates the predictive effect of support from teachers on that same variable, with the indirect effect of support from teachers being moderated by school climate. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Keywords:

• Support from teachers
• support from friends
• life satisfaction
• school engagement
• school climate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [[email protected]]. The data are not publicly available due to privacy of research participants and ethical restrictions.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Eusko Jaurlaritza [IT1217-19 Consolidated Research Group]; Spanish Ministry of the Economy, Industry and Competitiveness’ State Knowledge Generation Subprogram [EDU2017-83949-P].