The Moderating Role of School Relational Climate in the Association Between School Victimization and Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction: A Multilevel Study across 14 Countries

Abstract School victimization is widely recognized as a risk factor for adolescents’ life satisfaction. However, less is known about whether and how school-level relational climate moderates the association between school victimization and life satisfaction. Moreover, existing evidence is largely based on single-country samples, limiting the cross-national generalizability of prior findings. Using data from the Survey on Social and Emotional Skills 2023, this study employed multilevel linear modeling to examine the moderating role of school-level relational climate in the association between school victimization and adolescents’ life satisfaction. The sample included 59,699 adolescents (mean age = 14.52; 50.18% boys) from 14 countries. The results indicated that school victimization was negatively associated with adolescents’ life satisfaction. Furthermore, this negative association was stronger in schools characterized by lower levels of relational climate, supporting the heuristic model of school violence rather than the healthy context paradox. These findings provide implications for future development of policies and interventions by highlighting the importance of school-level relational climate for adolescents’ life satisfaction.