Family and School Environmental Correlates of School Related Affective Characteristics: An Australian Study

Canonical correlation analysis was used to examine relationships between measures of family and school environments and the school related affective characteristics of 12-year-old Australian children (N = 250 children and their parents). The environments were defined in terms of social psychological variables, and new measures were constructed. Although the environment measures had negligible zero-order relations with many of the affective measures, especially for girls, the canonical analysis suggests the propositions that (a) boys who perceived the school environment to be intellectually oriented and nonpunitive and who had the support of an academically oriented family expressed positive school related affective characteristics, but (b) children who perceived the school environment to be punitive expressed negative school related affective characteristics, even if the family provided academic support and the children perceived the school to be intellectually oriented. Generally the results do not support much previous research which has suggested that, compared with the family environment, measures of the school environment have negligible relations with children's individual characteristics.