Belonging in school

Two recent studies suggest the importance of belonging in school. First, Rambaran, Hoffman, Rivas-Drake, Schaefer, Umaña-Taylor & Ryan (2022) published “Belonging in Diverse Contexts: Sociability among same-ethnic and cross-ethnic peers” in Psychology. Here’s the abstract:

Ethnically and racially diverse schools provide students opportunities to socially interact with both same- and cross-ethnic peers that can shape their sense of belonging within a school. This study investigates the extent to which same- or cross-ethnic friends influence feelings of school belonging in two large, diverse U.S. high schools (total N = 4,461; 9th–12th grade; 49.6% girls). Employing a longitudinal social network analytic approach, using stochastic actor-oriented modeling, this study found that students become more similar or stay similar to their same-ethnic friends, but not cross-ethnic friends, with no clear indication that students select friends based on similar levels of belonging. These novel findings highlight how feelings of school belonging are fostered through sociability in same-ethnic friend groups. Implications for interventions and other approaches to enhance school belonging are discussed. 

I have mentioned school belonging before in my post titled “Greater Income Inequality, Lower School Belonging.” Rambaran et al.’s study suggests that school belonging is more common in same-ethnic friend groups. In the second study, Parker et al. (2022) published “School Belonging Predicts Whether an Emerging Adult will be Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) After School” in Journal of Educational Psychology. Here’s their abstract:

Children who are excluded from school may end up being excluded from other social institutions. Yet little research has considered whether low school belonging is a risk factor for not being in education, employment, or training after graduation. Using two longitudinal cohorts from Australia (N = 14,082; 51% Boys), we explored this relationship. Controlling for a range of individual and school-level covariates, we found that low school belonging at age 15 is a consistent and practically significant predictor of not in education, employment, or training (NEET) status at ages 16 to 20. We conclude that this relationship is unlikely to be the product of low school belonging lowering the chances of students graduating high school. Rather, low school belonging had a unique association with NEET beyond graduation. Given that NEET represents a range of vulnerabilities, educational policy and practice must find ways for schools to create opportunities for all students to feel included, valued, and accepted. 

The sample is large and gender-balanced. The fact that the lack of school belonging is unrelated to high school graduation but uniquely related to NEET status is concerning. If both studies were replicated, would we find that children who do not have strong same-ethnic friendships are less likely to feel belonging at school and more likely end up with NEET status? Is this a contributing factor in growing income inequality?