Using survey responses from 5,203 students, this article explores the effects of school
climate (e.g., clarity and fairness of rules) and individual student characteristics (e.g.,
age, sex, race, and dimensions of bonding) on two different measures of school disorder:
students? self-reported Offending and less serious Misconduct at school. Betweenschool
factors and within-school factors were examined using hierarchical linear
modeling (HLM) techniques. Schools varied significantly on both measures of disorder,
but individual-level variables explained greater portions of variance in Offending than
Misconduct. School climate variables explained a larger percentage of variance in
Misconduct. Implications for theory and prevention are discussed |