Honors Program Theses

Award/Availability

Open Access Honors Program Thesis

First Advisor

Elizabeth Lefler

Abstract

Depression and anxiety disorders are a significant public health concern, especially among adolescents and emerging adults. Education is a central component of adolescents’ lives that shapes their development and experiences. School climate refers to the overall nature and quality of a school’s environment. Social relationships, teaching and learning practices, school facilities, safety, and school connectedness all contribute to school climate. Previous studies have found that positive school environments serve as a protective factor against adverse mental health outcomes. However, many of these studies focus on a single aspect of school climate, and there is conflicting evidence on how school climate interacts with other factors, such as bullying. Thus, the current study examined the relations between high school climate, past bullying victimization, and depression and anxiety in emerging adults recently graduated from high school (N = 939). Several domains of high school climate, including relationships with peers and teachers, respect for individual differences, and school safety, were significantly negatively correlated with depression and anxiety symptoms in emerging adulthood. Further, those who were bullying victims exhibited more symptoms of depression and anxiety than non-victims. No significant interaction effect was found between high school climate and bullying victimization on depression or anxiety. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Year of Submission

2024

Department

Department of Psychology

University Honors Designation

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation University Honors

Date Original

5-6-2024

Object Description

1 PDF (50 pages)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Language

en

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