(PS3-74) The Moderating Role of Gender in the Relationship between Youths’ Internalizing Symptoms and School Climate.

Abstract Text: The mental health and well-being of children and adolescents in the United States is a major public health concern. Internalizing disorders, such as anxiety and depression, are among the most common mental health concerns in youth. Bio-ecological theories on development posit that children’s mental health is largely influenced by the environments in which they interact, and one critical environment is school. Research shows that social elements of the school environment—often referred to as school climate—can be a protective factor that buoys resilience for many at-risk youths. But few studies examine the relationship between school climate and internalizing symptoms across genders, even though boys tend to report poorer impressions of school climate than girls.

The current study was part of a larger grant-funded project examining the social, emotional, behavioral, and academic functioning of elementary-aged students. Sixteen schools in two separate school districts participated over four school years, ultimately recruiting a sample of 1,168 elementary-aged student participants. Children completed measures that captured their perceptions of school climate and their self-reported symptoms of anxiety and depression during five measurement occasions. Moderation analyses were then conducted to determine the effect of school climate on anxiety and depression in youths and the degree to which this effect is dependent on gender. Our results revealed significant main effects of school climate for both anxiety (B = -1.34, SE = 0.47, p = .003) and depression (B = -3.71, SE = 0.55, p < .001), where a worse perception of school climate was associated with increased internalizing symptoms when controlling for gender. But the moderating effects of gender was statistically inconclusive.

The significant main effects of school climate on internalizing symptoms are consistent with previous research and highlight the importance of setting effects. Like previous studies, we also found that boys tend to report poorer school climate than girls, suggesting that boys may be of special interest when using school climate measures to identify students for additional support or when evaluating interventions targeted to climate-related outcomes. Although gender may not be a significant moderator of the relationship between school climate and self-reported internalizing symptoms, the importance of school climate is confirmed and has clear implications for treatment efforts. Implications of our findings will be explored, including the possible complications of self-report measures with this population, and whether boys and girls are equally effective raters of their mood and anxiety.