School climate does not buffer the association between aggression beliefs and bullying perpetration

Bullying is a pervasive issue in schools, influenced by individual cognitive factors such as normative beliefs about aggression and contextual factors such as perceived school climate. Positive school climate dimensions—including connectedness, value of learning, and quality of relationships—are generally associated with reduced bullying perpetration. Here, we analyzed data from 4919 adolescents using ordinal logistic regression to assess whether student-perceived school climate moderates the relationship between endorsement of normative beliefs about aggression and bullying perpetration frequency. Stronger endorsement of aggression-related beliefs was associated with higher perpetration frequency, whereas several relational school climate dimensions were associated with lower perpetration frequency. However, we found no evidence that perceived school climate weakened the association between aggression-related beliefs and bullying perpetration frequency. These findings are more consistent with direct associations between perceived school climate and bullying perpetration than with a buffering effect on the belief–perpetration association. Bullying prevention efforts may therefore benefit from integrating climate-building actions with targeted interventions addressing aggression-related norms and beliefs.