The article synthesises the literature on the socioecological factors within the school climate - quality and character of school life (Cohen, 2009) influencing adolescents’ resilience. The review focuses on social relationships and the mechanisms used for teaching and learning practices. Resilience is a positive development outcome resulting from a triadic interactive process between the adolescent, the internal capacity, and the socioecological factors within the environment (Ungar, 2008).

This study reports the preliminary findings of a larger study aimed towards the development and validation of sound psychometric instruments that could be used to measure school health within the English-speaking Caribbean. As initial steps, this study located school climate surveys (teacher version and student version) developed by scholars in the United States for Chicago inner city schools. In collaboration with a secondary school principal in Jamaica, the surveys were modified to make them more appropriate to the Jamaican context.