This study investigates the relationship between the school climate, as perceived by the professional staff, and specific leadership behavior, as reported by the school principals in a selected school district in the state of Washington, The purpose of the study is to determine the extent to which the leader behavior of the principal correlates with- the total school climate as well as with the individual factors comprising the school climate. There are no statistically significant relationships among the variables studied. The hypothesis that the higher the leadership skills of the principal the more beneficial would be the climate of the school is not supported. The results suggest that the school climate is independent of the leadership behavior of the principal. Since no difference was found when the factors of climate were considered cumulatively, the individual factors were analyzed for significance. The seven factors of climate, identified by James Tunney and James Jenkins from the CFK Ltd. School Climate Profile, were independent of the leadership ability of the principal.

The systemic model posits that informal social control directly reduces crime victimization and social networks indirectly reduce crime victimization through informal social control. While empirical testing of the systemic model advanced the theory, important analytical issues remain. First, social networks are inconsistently conceptualized and measured. Second, the conceptual relationship between social networks and informal social control remains unclear. This study addresses these issues by testing an alternative to the systemic model, including new constructs and hypotheses. The goal is to develop better indicators for the model and refine the theory, rethinking and deepening the existing theory about neighborhood effects on crime victimization. The data come from the 2002-2003 Seattle Neighborhoods and Crime Survey (N=2,200). Structural equation modeling (SEM), a multivariate statistical technique, was used to analyze these data. The SEM included five latent constructs (neighboring, neighborhood and non-neighborhood social networks, collective efficacy, and crime victimization) and six social structural variables (racially homogeneous neighborhood, resident tenure, household income, family disruption, male, and non-white ethnicity). One of my 9 hypotheses was supported; the remaining hypotheses were partly supported. The results support my argument that the systemic model is too simplistic, but the relationships among the variables are not exactly as I hypothesized. …