School communication strategies improve schools’ surroundings’ safety: The moderation of students’ participation and anti-bullying programs in northern Italy

In the last decades, research focused on the surroundings’ influence over schools, but only a few studies investigated whether the presence of a school may increase its surroundings’ safety. Still, the characteristics of the school which could ameliorate the surroundings’ safety are still unclear. The current study hypothesizes that: i. a higher number of communication strategies in the school may increase the school surroundings’ safety; ii. the students’ participation in school decisions and the frequency of anti-bullying programs may strengthen the effect of communication over surroundings’ safety. The sample includes data of 62 school principals from the Northern Italian region of Lombardy who answered self-report questions from Health Behaviors in School-Aged Children (2014) protocol. Findings from moderation analysis show that a higher number of communication strategies within the school fosters the perception of safer school surroundings. The impact of students’ participation in school decisions does not constitute a significant moderator of the relationship. In contrast, the frequency of anti-bullying programs results to impact negatively on the association between communication strategies and surroundings’ safety.