Teacher Context Explains between-School Differences In Student Social-Emotional Outcomes: Multilevel Evidence from an International Sample In the 2019 Survey on Social and Emotional Skills

Introduction

Students’ social-emotional competency development is shaped by both individual characteristics and the broader school environments in which students learn and develop. For social work research, schools are especially important contexts because they organize relationships, expectations, and support systems that may influence youth well-being at scale. The literature emphasizes student-level risk and protective factors, with less attention to way in which school-level teacher context helps explain differences in student social-emotional outcomes across schools. This study used data from the 2019 International Survey on Social and Emotional Skills to examine whether aggregated teacher-reported school context measures were associated with student emotional well-being, empathy, motivation, and optimism above and beyond student-level characteristics.

Data Source and Analysis

The study included 61,000 students (10 and 15-year-olds) nested within 1,434 schools from 16 counties. Four student outcomes were examined: emotional well-being, empathy, motivation, and optimism. Teacher-reported indicators were aggregated to the school level to represent school-level teacher context. Multilevel linear models with random intercepts for schools were estimated to account for clustering of students within schools. Student-level covariates included age (10 vs. 15-year-olds) and gender (male vs. female), both modeled at Level 1. Models were estimated sequentially to assess how much between-school variance was explained first by student composition and then by school-level teacher context. Intraclass correlations from unconditional models were used to estimate the proportion of total variance attributable to schools prior to adding predictors.

Results

Results showed meaningful between-school variation across all four outcomes in unconditional models, with intraclass correlations ranging from approximately .06 to .10. After adjusting for student-level cohort and gender, substantial between-school variance remained. Adding school-level teacher context variables explained a sizeable proportion of the remaining school-level variance in each outcome. In the full models, approximately 71% of the between-school variance was explained by optimism, 58% by motivation, 44% by emotional well-being, and 31% by empathy. The incremental contribution of teacher-context variables beyond student-level controls ranged from approximately 18% to 33% of the school-level variance, depending on the outcome. These findings indicate that school differences in student social-emotional functioning were not explained solely by student composition. Instead, the collective teacher-reported school context was meaningfully associated with student outcomes across multiple domains. Although the magnitude and direction of specific teacher-context indicators varied by outcome, the overall pattern suggests that school climate and educator-reported conditions are multidimensional and may shape student well-being in distinct ways.

Implications

Findings support the value of a multilevel ecological perspective in social work research on youth development and school well-being. For practice, the results suggest that interventions focused exclusively on individual students may overlook important schoolwide conditions associated with social-emotional functioning. School social workers and interdisciplinary teams may strengthen student well-being not only through direct services, but also by supporting relational climate, educator capacity, and broader institutional environments that promote positive development. Overall, findings from the 2019 SSES highlight the importance of addressing school-level context alongside student-centered approaches to improve youth social-emotional outcomes.