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Thesis advisor: Richard M. Jackson / Belonging in schools is an often-researched topic. However, the lived experiences of students with disabilities as related to belonging have not been explored in great depth. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to begin to understand the lived experiences of belonging for middle school students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBDs) through a relational lens (relational here was meant as more than just focusing on relationships). This phenomenological approach allowed for an in-depth exploration of how participants understand belonging and how it impacts their lives. Ten student participants were interviewed over a series of four interview sessions in which they discussed their experiences with and understanding of belonging in school. Findings revealed complex and multifaceted subjective lived experiences of belonging. Findings are presented here through participant summaries, across participants in broader descriptive themes, and through the creation of a participant model. Interpretive themes are also presented to help guide further analysis and understanding of the findings. Considering the qualitative nature of this study, these themes are not meant to be reductive, but rather to generate additional questions. In keeping with this purpose, a Generative Model of Belonging was created from the broader literature base on middle school belonging, and this model was revisited and revised based on the findings of this study. It was also used to create the aforementioned participant model. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Because bilingual programs provide a secure environment likely to promote school belonging, it was hypothesized that Hispanic students in a bilingual program would experience higher belonging than those in regular education and that they would experience a steeper drop in belonging at the transition to middle school. Participants were 277 Hispanic and White elementary and middle school students who were followed longitudinally from grade 4 to 6. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to compare the mean levels of school belonging across groups and measure the change in school belonging at the transition. Results suggested that Hispanic students both in bilingual and in regular education had higher belonging than White students and that groups did not differ in their change in belonging at the transition to middle school.

In this study, I explore the dynamic relationships between how students feel about their school, school belonging, and to what extent they feel motivated to study a second language, L2 motivation. School belonging, which has rarely been studied in the field of applied linguistics, is widely discussed in educational psychology, and its relationship with academic achievement has been examined. However, the relationship between school belonging and L2 motivation has hardly been investigated. The first purpose of this study is to fill this gap by verifying the existence of a sense of school belonging as a psychological factor among first-year Japanese university students in an English as a foreign language context, and then to investigate its relationship with L2 motivation. I employ a convergent mixed method design in which the quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted at the same time. Quantitative data were collected through surveys from 540 first-year students in four Japanese universities, including higher- and lower-ranked universities. The qualitative data were collected through self-reflection from 176 students, comments from 413 students, and interviews with 11 students. The interviewees were selected based on their willingness to participate. The quantitative data and qualitative data were collected three times in 2018 and 2019: the first time in May and June 2018, the second time in September and October 2018, and the third time in January and February 2019. Validity evidence for the surveys was gathered through a pilot study. In the main study, school belonging was verified as one large factor mainly using Rasch analysis. The general relationship between school belonging and motivation to learn English and the changes of those relationships over the course of the year were assessed by calculating the responses to the questions with structural equation modeling (SEM). Details of students’ feelings toward their school and their connections to English learning motivation were investigated through analyses of the qualitative data. The quantitative results showed that a sense of school belonging that varies among first-year Japanese university students exists and that the relationship between school belonging and L2 motivation and their changes over the course of the year can be explained in a model in which individual differences in school belonging and L2 motivation and their changes are explained. The qualitative results support the finding that school belonging and L2 motivation are related to each other and also show that students change their school belonging and L2 motivation dynamically for a variety of reasons. Students can change their perceptions of school and language learning from positive to negative or negative to positive, and their changes can be uneven when looked at through the lens of sub-components of these constructs. By merging quantitative results and qualitative results, differences were found between the two types of data analyses. School was found to predict changes in school belonging and L2 motivation in the quantitative analyses, while different types of students, such as those who have positive school belonging and negative L2 motivation and those who have negative school belonging and positive L2 motivation were found in the same school in the qualitative analyses. Moreover, concepts of school belonging and L2 motivation were validated as hypothesized in the quantitative analyses, while unexpected ideas, such as belonging to multiple groups and loss of L2 motivation due to technological developments, were revealed by the result of the qualitative analyses. These results imply that fostering school belonging among university students can lead to studying English harder. / Teaching & Learning

An alarmingly high level of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) college students in the United States end up dropping out of secondary education institutions. One important predictor of academic success and retention at the secondary level is student sense of school belonging. This thesis explores NHPI college students' perceptions of how their university instructors foster or undermine their sense of school belonging. A snowball sample of 97 NHPI students participated in 18 focus groups that included students from various islands and ethnicities in Oceania who were attending one U.S. university in the Pacific Rim. Focus group data were transcribed and analyzed using a thematic analytic approach. Open coding was conducted to investigate ways that NHPI participants talked about how their instructors did or did not help them feel a sense of belonging at the university. Four main findings emerged from this study. First, NHPI students were able to articulate ways their instructors fostered or undermined school belonging, highlighting the importance of instructors for fostering school belonging. Second, responses reveal that NHPI students feel a sense of school belonging when instructors show care and build bridges for academic success. NHPI students also noted why these were so important for them, given their cultural backgrounds and experiences. Conversely, when instructors failed to show care or build bridges, NHPI students shared how directly and devastatingly their sense of school belonging was undermined. Third, many NHPI students shared the positive and negative impacts of these school belonging experiences as pertaining to academic self-efficacy, motivation, and persistence. Finally, NHPI students articulated how important it was for them to have instructors who chose to attend to the student-teacher relationship and were able to provide cultural representation within their classrooms. There are several implications from this study for university instructors who work with NHPI students. First, the teacher-student relationship really matters for these students and instructors must develop relationships with their NHPI students in meaningful ways. Second, instructors should seek to create safe spaces for their NHPI students to speak and share. Third, instructors need to be explicit in their instruction and build the bridges for academic success that NHPI students cannot build for themselves. Overall, instructors should be made aware that they really matter for fostering or undermining NHPI students' experiences of school belonging in the college or university setting.

Thesis advisor: Mary E. Walsh / Gender is an undeniably significant element of human identity, contributing to multiple aspects of development. Previous research suggests that gender typicality, a sense that one is typical for one's own gender category, is associated with positive developmental outcomes among children while a sense of gender atypicality is generally associated with negative outcomes, including lowered self-esteem (Egan & Perry, 2001). This study further investigates the relationship between gender typicality and self-esteem from a developmental-contextual perspective by examining the relationship in the context of various developmental systems (e.g., school, peer group). Positive connections to developmental systems such as peers and school have been found to foster resilience by reinforcing strengths and buffering students from negative outcomes (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998). Therefore, it was hypothesized that classroom social support and school belonging would moderate the relationship between gender typicality and self-esteem by protecting gender atypical children from the negative cost of low self-esteem. Within the current sample, the relationship between gender typicality and self-esteem was more robust than in previous studies. While the moderating hypotheses were not confirmed, gender typicality was found to mediate the relationship between school belonging and self-esteem. The current findings underscore the vital role of gender and gender typicality in children's lives. Implications for prevention and intervention efforts in schools are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology.

Pacific Islander high school students in the state of Utah specifically, but across the United States generally, face significant challenges such as high levels of high school dropout and low levels of academic attainment. The purpose of this study was to examine if components of an achieved ethnic identity (exploration and commitment) are positively related to high levels of school belonging among Pacific Islander high school students in Utah. I further investigated whether self-esteem was a mediating factor in any observed relationship between ethnic identity and school belonging. Participants in this study were Pacific Islander youth between the ages of 13-19 years old and attending high school in the state of Utah. The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure—Revised, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory, Simple School Belonging Scale, and demographic questions were combined in a survey and taken by 111 participants. Results indicate a significantly positive relationship between school belonging and self-esteem (r = .39, p < .001). However, no relationship was observed between ethnic identity and school belonging. Results also suggests that self-esteem is not a mediating factor, nor is it related to ethnic identity individually for these students. Another purpose of this study was to better understand Pacific Islander students in our public education system, and especially in the state of Utah. Results revealed that ethnic identity may not operate in the same way for students in this study as has been suggested in the literature for other ethnic minorities. Specifically, ethnic identity, as measured by the MEIM-R may not represent the same construct, which leads to questions about how this sample was different than other national samples. The context of Utah may have been a determining factor and may play a role in the formation of ethnic identity for Pacific Islander students who live in Utah, especially for those who are also Latter-day Saint. Future research should look closely at the relationship between religiosity and ethnic identity for Pacific Islander students in Utah schools. The findings from this study also highlight the role of self-esteem in school belonging. They suggest a need to move beyond generalizations of this group of students as "minorities" to understanding how to increase their self-esteem in hopes of boosting their sense of belonging in our schools, thus leading to greater high school retention and academic achievement for this population.

This study sought to examine how schools influenced and promoted student resilience through the lens of persistence, leading to high school completion. The focus of this study was significant because there are few studies that focus on student resiliency as it relates to high school completion through the lens of persistence. Previous studies have generally identified at-risk factors for non-high school completion and either qualify or quantify the results. They have not taken into account the social and economic contexts of school and the communities and their influence on student resiliency. This study utilized a phenomenological methodology that identified the lived experiences of twenty-six 11th - grade students of color at an urban high school in Southern California that manifested resilience and persistence. Semi-structured interviews of participants drawn from a stratified variation sampling were utilized. A CRT framework was applied to examine the role of high school as a protective factor, the interactions of faculty and staff, and the perceptions of participants as it relates to school culture and climate. External factors such as supportive relationships in the familial and community context were also examined and discussed. The results of this study highlighted school climate that promotes belonging along with a collective focus on the study of student success, the role of teacher-student and counselor relationships as being pivotal to the development of resilience in students of color. The findings from this study provide examples for schools to develop supportive climates that focus on promoting and developing academic, social, and emotional resiliency in students of color with specific next step recommendations.

Researchers have demonstrated that students who had a strong sense of school belonging exhibited greater academic motivation and performance (E. Anderman, 2002; Faircloth & Hamm, 2005), had fewer emotional and behavioral difficulties (Furrer & Skinner, 2003; McMahon, Singh, Garner, & Benhorin; 2004), and were less likely to dropout of school (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004; Knesting, 2008). Limited attention has been given to the potential factors that promote school belonging, especially in high school students. The purpose of this research was to examine the unique influence of adult connections on high school students’ sense of school belonging utilizing the framework of self-determination theory. The role of adult connections was examined as a moderator of the relations between five student risk factors (behavior problems, peer problems, minority ethnicity, male gender, and poverty) and school belonging. This cross-sectional study analyzed data from a survey completed by 368 ninth grade students. The survey consisted of items from existing instruments, including the Psychological Sense of School Membership (Goodenow, 1993a), the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, Meltzer, & Bailey, 2003), and the Basic Need Satisfaction in Relationships Scale (La Guardia, Ryan, Couchman, & Deci, 2000). Hierarchical regression analyses confirmed study hypotheses by indicating that adult connections was a significant predictor of the students’ sense of school belonging and significantly moderated the relationship between school belonging and behavior problems (p < .05). Additional analyses indicated that adult connections accounted for more of the variance in school belonging for males than for females. These findings supported the importance of adult connections in high school students’ sense of school belonging. Future research should address the relationship between adult connections and school belonging as it evolves over students’ high school careers.

A study was conducted among a sample of Korean American students to investigate the potential moderation of the risks related to English proficiency by the protection of school belonging. Perceived scholastic competence, self-reported school grades, and academic expectancies were used for dependent variables. It was hypothesized that students with higher sense of belonging would be less affected by English proficiency than their peers with lower sense of belonging. The risk of English proficiency was confirmed. However, school belonging did not have as much of an effect as expected and students with higher English proficiency seemed to gain more benefit from increased school belonging. This finding reminds educators of the pressing importance of English proficiency, and future research is suggested to investigate the unique effects of belonging among students of Korean, and perhaps other Asian, backgrounds.