Understanding the Association between School Belonging and Emotional Health in Adolescents

Abstract

Given the literature suggesting the link between school belonging and various outcomes in adolescents, it is substantial to gain a more detailed understanding of the sense of belonging and its effects at school. Despite this literature, its potential impacts on emotional health have remained relatively unexplored. To this end, the present study reports the role of the school belonging in promoting emotional health based on the bidimensional model in high school adolescents. Participants comprised of 413– 49.7% female and 50.3% male– adolescents, ranging in age between 11 and 18 years (M = 13.96, SD = 1.64). Findings from the present study demonstrated that adolescents with high levels of the school belonging have low levels of the emotional distress, yet high levels of the emotional wellbeing. Additionally, significant main effects for emotional wellbeing, emotional distress, and bidimensional emotional health were observed across all school belonging scales. Considering the outcomes of the bidimensional emotional health, the larger effect size for the bidimensional emotional health main effect was found for school belonging, comparing with unidimensional emotional wellbeing and distress.  Results of the study provide important implications for research and practice in term of mental health services in school settings.