Open Classroom Climate: A Developmental Asset and Necessary Feature of Public Schools

In this paper, we apply the principles of Relational-Developmental Systems to explain the role classrooms and schools play in youths’ adaptive development. Taking an applied developmental perspective, we argue that an open classroom climate —where students perceive teachers to be supportive of diverse perspectives and welcoming of discussion about controversial social and political issues—is both a developmental asset and a necessary feature of classrooms and schools. An open classroom climate is critical to individual youth's healthy functioning and supports schools in the fulfillment of their democratic aim. Currently, students attending K-12 public schools in the United States face limitations in access to educational content, which is being restricted through increasingly sophisticated, organized efforts to control what teachers teach, how they teach, and what materials appear in their classrooms. Such efforts contradict research suggesting that young people need opportunities to discuss social and political issues within their classrooms. After reviewing evidence that substantiates the developmental, academic, and civic benefits associated with open classroom climate, we provide recommendations for how teachers, schools, and education-related policymakers should support the facilitation of open classroom climates, for the benefit of students and for society.