School climate and resilience promoting characteristics: exploring latent patterns of student perceptions in California

Few studies holistically examine how students experience the multiple dimensions of school climate and resilience promoting characteristics, or how these two constructs may be interrelated. This study utilised a sample of 78,550 7^th, 9^th, and 11^th grade students in California. Roughly half of the participants were female (52%), and roughly half (49%) were Latino. Latent Class Analysis was used to identify a 6-profile model for school climate and a 2-profile model for resilience promoting characteristics. Students experiencing overall positive climate, those experiencing supportive adult relationships, and those who engage meaningfully in their work at schools were more likely to report higher resilience promoting characteristics. These findings highlight the importance of fostering positive and protective school climate. In addition, findings support a social-ecological theory of resilience, indicating that schools are contexts that may play an important role in developing resilience promoting characteristics for secondary students.