Multidimensional School Climate and Mental Health Among Chinese Vocational High School Students: The Role of Personal Growth Initiative

Vocational high school students represent a substantial yet understudied population in school-based mental health research. Drawing on positive psychology and bioecological theory, this study examined whether personal growth initiative (PGI) shows a statistical indirect effect with respect to the relationships between multidimensional school climate and mental health outcomes among Chinese vocational students. Participants were 14,006 students from 112 vocational high schools. Two-level path models simultaneously entered different climate dimensions to estimate their unique associations with PGI, depressive symptoms, and Subjective well-being (SWB) at the within- and between-school levels, controlling for gender and socioeconomic status. Within schools, Safety, Interpersonal Relationships, Rules and Norms/Career Development Support, and Teaching and Learning/Diversity were positively associated with PGI, which in turn was associated with lower depressive symptoms and higher SWB. Wald tests indicated that Safety showed the strongest overall association with depressive symptoms, whereas Interpersonal Relationships showed the strongest overall association with SWB. At the between-school level, school-average climate and school-average PGI were associated with both outcomes, although these findings should be interpreted cautiously given the limited between-school power and substantial overlap among aggregated climate indicators. Overall, the findings are consistent with PGI being an important student-level pathway linking school climate to mental health in vocational education.