Do my teachers treat me justly? Implications of students’ justice experience for class climate experience

A questionnaire study with 401 grade 8 and 9 students from academic-track secondary schools in Germany examined the hypotheses that the more students experience their teachers’ behavior toward them personally to be just, the better their individual experience of class climate, and that the belief in a just world (BJW) is positively related to both student experiences. Class climate was assessed in terms of two second-order dimensions: classroom climate (e.g., willingness to learn) and student climate (e.g., community). Multilevel analyses revealed that the more the students evaluated their teachers’ behavior toward them personally to be just, the more positively they evaluated the classroom and student climate. Moreover, students with a strong BJW tended to evaluate their teachers’ behavior toward them personally to be more just and the climate of their class to be more positive. Furthermore, the experience of teacher justice partly mediated the BJW’s effect on the climate evaluations. Thus, a strong BJW seems to function as a personal resource for students, explaining significant parts of their individual experience of both teacher justice and class climate at school. Most importantly, individually experienced teacher justice seems to be a significant factor when it comes to understanding class climate. Implications are discussed.