Findings from the study, a collaboration between Monash University, Deakin University, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and the University of Melbourne, emphasise the significant role secondary school belonging plays in predicting lower levels of anxiety, depression, and stress across young adulthood.
School belonging is characterised by a positive affect towards school, strong relationships with teachers, and feeling socially valued, and has long been associated with immediate benefits for students’ mental health.
Lead author, Associate Professor Kelly-Ann Allen, an educational psychologist with the School of Educational Psychology and Counselling in Monash University’s Faculty of Education, tells EducationHQ the study highlights the significance of adolescent school belonging, particularly the feeling of being socially valued, as a protective factor against later mental health issues.
“The results emphasise the need for sustained interventions and programs that extend beyond the school setting, establishing a strong foundation for positive engagement in various environments during the transition to adulthood,” she says.
“…helping students feel valued and included during the adolescent years has long-term protective effects on mental health.
“In fact, with all the information we have to date on school belonging, it needs to be considered as a key factor in the development of adults’ mental health and wellbeing.”
Allen says the research also reaffirms findings from a meta-analysis she undertook in 2018, which found that positive student-teacher relationships had the strongest effect on school belonging.
“The relationships with teachers are hugely influential,” she says.
“I think about this all the time – I think what a sensitive time adolescence is, and how things like self-esteem and self-efficacy are so important, and how teachers have such a strong part to play in building that in students.
“It is possible that these relationships create a strong support system for students – but it is also worth considering the perceived power dynamics that are at play when there is a shift from one of authority to one of support and collaboration – a teacher that is likeable and approachable is more likely to create a climate of trust and where students feel like they belong.”
Associate Professor Kelly-Ann Allen says students really need to feel valued and included, particularly during their teenage years, and it's around the age of 15 when often their sense of school belonging starts to drop.
Other Monash-based research also shows that when it comes to school belonging, students want to be valued, seen and acknowledged by their teachers.
“This is not extra workload, this is about noticing when they are away a day, or knowing about their special interests or hobbies,” Allen says.
Teacher belonging matters too, she suggests.
“Research has also found that when teachers feel a sense of belonging to their school, there are school belonging benefits for their students,” she says.
“Schools are pretty powerful places for community building and anyone who has worked in a school can attest this.”
The collaborative study is especially significant, as it draws on data from the more than 1500 young adults included in one of the nation’s longest running population-based studies of socioemotional development (the Australian Temperament Project), looking at school belonging at the age of 15–16 and mental health symptoms at age 19–20, and 23–24 years.
“It’s special data … it’s a 40-year project now,” Allen says.
“The research showed the importance of school belonging at three critical age points.
“This pattern suggests the enduring positive impact of school belonging, but perhaps the most exciting part of this research is that it adds to the evidence base of other longitudinal research…
“…they’ve been able to track data to this cohort, which are now in their 40s with children, so we’re getting that intergenerational, rich follow-up data, which is really exciting.”
Dr Meredith O’Connor from Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, says the study findings come at a crucial time, as the OECD has identified belonging as a major trend in education with the potential to counteract increasing loneliness, social isolation and mental health problems in many societies.
“The long-term follow-up of individuals within the Australian Temperament Project allowed us to examine how experiences of school belonging mattered for young adults’ wellbeing almost a decade later, which is a unique and important contribution to the existing evidence base,” O’Connor says.
Allen says during their teens, adolescents are navigating complex social dynamics, and feeling valued and accepted in their school environment can significantly reduce feelings of isolation and anxiety.
Just why school belonging is such a crucial part of shaping mental wellbeing in adolescents is difficult to nutshell, but Allen says viewing belonging as a fundamental human need that most of us have a drive to fulfil, is a starting point.
“Some researchers will talk about our ancestral connections and survival as a species operating as a group and link it to a primal drive embedded in our DNA, while other research shows strong links between belonging and life satisfaction, wellbeing, identity and self-esteem,” she says.
“These are all things that are fairly critical during the teenage years.”
Allen explains that adolescents are busy navigating complex social dynamics, and feeling valued and accepted in their school environment can significantly reduce feelings of isolation and anxiety.
“Links are also found for coping and resilience, attendance and academic motivation, all of which are key components in a positive school experience but also healthy psychological development that reduces mental health problems,” she says.
Allen suggests there are perceptions of what schools look like from the outside, and perceptions of what they look like from the inside, and that “it’s really different when you’re working in schools”.
“Schools have this incredible ability to create communities, and anybody that has worked in a school, and there’s more than just teachers that work in schools, there’s a plethora of school staff that we sometimes neglect to talk about, but any of these school staff could attest to the types of communities that schools can build."
She says when it comes to school belonging, there’s no one catch-all approach or intervention.
“I think we’ve got to look at schools as individual contexts or individual workplaces, and how the individual responds to that context also has a role,” Allen explains.
“Teacher belonging is really important to focus on because if they feel a sense of belonging, that’s going to flow on to students.
“In our findings around teacher belonging to the profession, I think 85 per cent felt a sense of belonging to the profession, and it’s because they’re able to hold on to what got them there, what made them want to be a teacher in the first place.”
She believes schools need to be equipped with the right tools to be able to identify social networks and social dynamics in students easily, so that educators can be preventative if they see students that are ostracised or socially isolated or rejected, and can put the appropriate supports in place.
Allen says with research as it stands, much is known about the benefits of belonging, and what can build it, and “if you ask any teacher or staff member or get them together to mentor each other or talk collaboratively, they could come up with a million strategies”.
“Students are an amazing resource for providing strategies of what helps them feel a sense of belonging. I feel like we’ve got those resources,” she says.
“And so now, I think, next we need those tools to be able to look at social networks and be able to really lean into the understanding that for many people, not just students, those social relationships are what gives them that sense of belonging, even though you might get a sense of belonging from outside of those spheres.
“But, you know, the social stuff is the bread and butter of belonging.”
