Does the school-community relationship impact the emergence of school malaise? A multiple case study from a social-ecological perspective

Traditionally, the school malaise has been understood as an intra-school, individual or interactional phenomena. The contribution made by Bronfenbrenner (1989) and followed by international research (Berger & Lisboa; 2009; Khoury-Kassabri, Astor & Benbenishty, 2009) has allowed to widen the understaing of malaise, interpreting it as a complex, multivaried phenomena that would emerge in the relation between interactional, organizational, community and cultural variables. This research analyses a topic which has been scarcely explored in Chile, this is, the extra-walls space of the schools: how does the relationship between the school and community La presente investigación aborda un tema poco explorado en nuestro país, esto es, el espacio de extramuros de la escuela: Does the School-Community Relationship Impact the Emergence of School Malaise? Social community support perceived can be understood as the perceptions of aid or satisfaction that the school builds, regarding its social network and the resources received by it (Caplan 1974; Gracia, 1997). Malaise can be understood as the aggression, violence and suffering generated in the educative spaces, which cannot be attributed to a single educative actor, but also to both "the individual factors, as well as the contexts where they develop" (Blanco, 2005, p. 175). The present research has been conducted through a qualitative focus, adopting a multiple-case design. The cases were chosen applying a battery of School Climate (SC) to 4.688 students from 81 schools in Valparaíso, Chile. This battery was applied under an aleatory and representative design utilizing the School Environment Index (SEI). Afterwards, two schools were selected, which were located in the percentile 90 of the SEI (positive SC) and the percentile 10 of the SEI (negative SC). The methods were in-depth interviews, analysed through content analysis. Among the findings, the school with high malaise shows negative social community support perceived, marginalizing itself from the community. The school with low malaise evidences a positive value and sense of belonging towards the community. The discussions advance towards the need of understanding that the school is embedded in a community and its practices are influenced by this.