Transforming School Climate: Educational and Psychoanalytic Perspectives

School climate refers to the character and quality of school life. It is based on these patterns and reflects norms, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, teaching, learning, leadership practices, and organizational structures. School climate is at the nexus of individual and group experience. School climate is based on the individual's perception of school life. But it is more than individual perception: it reflects group trends. To consider how a group of educators and psychoanalysts think about school climate and the process of transforming the climate of a school in positive ways, a short narrative about a middle school is presented in this introduction. The narrative is organized around individual student and administrator, as well as group, experiences. Like all schools—and people—we learn about strengths, difficulties, and conflict. All of the contributors have been asked to address the following two questions: How do you—as an educator and/or a clinician—understand this story? And what would your school climate improvement goals and related assessment and/or intervention strategies be and why?