Parental Perceptions of School Climate in the United States and China: Advancing Cross-Country Understanding

To advance cross-country understanding of parental perceptions of school climate, this study examined the psychometric properties of the Delaware School Climate Survey-Home version (DSCS-H) and also compared the parental perception of school climate among Chinese (n = 999) and American (n = 1,251) parents. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that the DSCS-H was best supported by a second-order factor model in both samples and full measurement invariance across countries was evident. Comparison of overall school climate latent means revealed that American parents from elementary schools perceived a more positive overall school climate than did Chinese parents. Conversely, Chinese parents of students in high school perceived a more positive overall school climate than the American parents. The latent-mean difference of parental perception of the overall school climate in middle schools across the United States and China was not significantly different. Finally, the latent mean differences in school climate subfactors varied across grade levels. Implications for using the DSCS-H for assessing and understanding the perception of school climate among parents from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds are discussed. Impact and ImplicationsThe findings highlight the cultural commonalities and variations of parental perceptions of school climate across three grade levels in the United States and China. This study also provides initial psychometric validation supporting the use of the Delaware School Climate Survey-Home version in schools in China. Furthermore, although the multidimensional nature of the school climate concept has been supported in many previous studies based on student and teacher reports, this study is among the first to focus on the perspectives of parents.