Family vs Classroom Climates: Differential Contributions to Children's Imagination

Children's imagination develops within multiple everyday social contexts, particularly family and classroom climates. However, little is known about the differential contributions of the intangible climates to children's general and scientific imagination.

This study aimed to examine the differential associations of family and classroom climates with primary school students' general and scientific imagination and quantified the relative contribution of specific environmental dimensions to individual differences in imagination.

Participants were 476 students aged 8-12 years in Grades 3-6. General imagination was assessed using the Imagination Subscale of the Williams Creativity Assessment Packet, and scientific imagination was assessed using the Scientific Imagination Inventory. Family and classroom climates were measured using the Family Climate Scale and the Classroom Climate Scale, respectively. Correlation analyses were conducted to examine the associations among variables. Given the nested structure of the data and the small number of classes (k = 12), ordinary least squares regression with CR2 cluster-robust standard errors was used to examine the unique associations of family and classroom climate dimensions with imagination. Shapley value decomposition was subsequently applied to estimate the relative contribution of each predictor to the explained variance.

Family climate was positively associated with both general and scientific imagination, whereas classroom climate showed a differentiated pattern across its dimensions. Peer relationships were positively associated with imagination, while competition was consistently negatively associated with both outcomes. Regression analyses identified competition and peer relationships as significant predictors of general imagination (R² =0.070), while family climate, peer relationships, and competition significantly predicted scientific imagination (R² =0.133). Overall classroom climate was non-significant when controlling for family climate. Shapley value decomposition indicated that competition (57.7% of R²) yielded the largest relative contribution to general imagination, followed by peer relationships (24.1%) and family climate (8.2%). Bootstrap analyses showed that the rankings of competition and peer relationships were highly stable. For scientific imagination, competition (33.5%), family climate (26.9%), and peer relationships (23.5%) constituted the three largest contributors, and their rankings were moderately stable.

Family climate constituted a relatively stable supportive context, whereas classroom climate exhibited opposing associations across its dimensions. Competition was consistently negatively associated with both forms of imagination and accounted for the largest relative share of explained variance, exceeding the contributions of family climate and peer relationships. These findings suggest that supporting children's imagination may involve not only cultivating supportive relational resources but also attending to potentially constraining conditions, particularly competitive classroom climates.