Joshua Klugman, Associate Professor of Psychology and Sociology, is one of the latest recipients of the Libraries’ pilot Open Access Publishing Fund, which provides financial support to Temple faculty who publish their research in open access journals. Klugman’s article, “Essential or Expendable Supports? Assessing the Relationship between School Climate and Student Outcomes” was just published by the open access journal Sociological Science. Sociological Science was launched in 2014 by sociologists from Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and other leading universities. The journal aims to get cutting-edge sociological research out in the world as quickly as possible.

Klugman’s article contradicts the findings of the influential book, Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago (2010), which argues that school climate has a significant impact on students’ academic outcomes. Klugman finds that a better school climate does not make much of a difference when it comes to outcomes like test scores and graduation rates. He concludes, however, that it could be that school climate matters, but that it is just very difficult to measure. As a result, Klugman suggests that schools might think twice before spending significant time and resources on climate surveys.

We asked Professor Klugman why he was interested in making his work openly available. He told us: “My article has important things to say to school administrators and policymakers (namely, they should not waste their time and money on school climate surveys). Sociological Science is a reputable journal, run by top sociologists, and the fact it is open access means these decision-makers can access my article and come to their own conclusions.”

To learn more about Professor Klugman’s research, read his recent interview with Temple’s College of Liberal Arts. To learn more about the Libraries’ OA Publishing Fund, click here.