Recent trends in developmental psychology and developmental systems theory have opened child career development learning (CCDL) to new perspectives. This study adopts a Systems of Influences perspective with the aim of highlighting the development of systems of influences characterising students attending an Italian primary and middle school. Two…

This paper presents a multi-informant study on school climate with the aim of (a) comparing students', teachers', and parents' perceptions of several school climate dimensions and (b) examining the associations between dimensions pertaining to classroom practices and school atmosphere in both students and teachers. Participants comprised 105…

School closure and distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic have posed several challenges to children. Drawing upon the social--ecological framework, in this preliminary study, we tested what factors may help to explain students' difficulties with distance learning during COVID-19 lockdown, by analyzing family, school, and individual…

This study, conducted with a person-oriented approach, aimed to assess whether students who are positively engaged in school activities and daily practices perceive their school climate differently from students who feel distant and less engaged in school. To achieve this aim, by means of a Latent Profile Analysis with the 3-step approach, we…

Student engagement has been acknowledged as a crucial factor for promoting successful learning. In this study we adopted a multidimensional approach to study the associations between school climate and student engagement. We aimed to test the direct and indirect associations of five concrete (Rules, Student Support, Student Involvement, Positive…

The current study aimed to test the factorial structure and psychometric properties of a parent version of the Multidimensional School Climate Questionnaire (MSCQ), a multi-informant and multidimensional measure of school climate recently developed and validated in Italian for a student version, by also providing evidence of measurement invariance…

Civic engagement represents a key aspect of a democratic society and is itself a multidimensional construct. Research has shown that the promotion of civic engagement is an important component of civic and citizenship education intended in a broad sense, pertaining to formal, non-formal and informal learning situations. Within a national scenario…

Although women's representation in STEM fields and occupations has increased, science and math continue to be stereotyped as male domains. This paper links psychological and sociological explanations for gendered disparities in STEM by examining the relationship between the local "micro-situational" female learning environment and the…

In this article, we present a multidimensional school climate questionnaire, based on an adaptation and validation of the Socio-Educational Environment Questionnaire, which is an instrument developed in Canada, assessing several dimensions of school climate. In particular, the aim of this research was to create a Multidimensional School Climate…

The literature on school climate, albeit vast, is limited by a scarcity of longitudinal research. This two-wave longitudinal study aims to bridge this gap by (a) assessing, over two school years, the changes in students' perceptions of several dimensions of school climate and (b) exploring the reciprocal longitudinal effects of student perceptions…

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted opportunities for adolescents to progress through a typical developmental trajectory of adjustment and self-regulation. Adolescents across many contexts have shown an increase in adjustment difficulties during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic levels. Utilizing data collected from 830 Italian adolescents from…

In this article, we present the first results of the project OPEN-MATH. The research project aims at acknowledging the need for learning environments with differentiation strategies for all. We developed a model for inclusive mathematics learning, based on the Theory of Objectification and a broad idea of differentiation realized through Open…

In this study, we extend prior research in the role of school climate in civic education by exploring the relationship between immigrant students' experiences of bullying and their attitudes toward their countries of settlement. Using the 2016 IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, we employ a multiple regression analysis with…

School sense of community has been associated with lower levels of students' aggressive behaviors. The main aim of the study was to examine whether the magnitude of the influence of school sense of community on students' aggressive behavior is similar or different across schools with different levels of aggressive behaviors. Participants were…

Psychological sense of community among early adolescents has been investigated using instruments developed for adolescents/adults or ad hoc scales. The aim was to contribute to the validation of a scale of Sense of Community in Early Adolescents (SoC-EA) using a 3-year longitudinal study. Participants were 576 Italian students attending middle…