How Do I Belong Compared With Others? Relative Belonging and Math Achievement in Chinese Adolescents

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: The Relationship of Climate and Belonging with STEM

Abstract

School belonging has been widely studied over the past 15 years, typically as an individual-level construct. This study introduces relative belonging, which reflects how a student’s sense of belonging compares to the average belonging level in their school. Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling and data on Chinese adolescents (N = 12,058; 48% female) from the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment, we examined the association between relative belonging and math achievement, overall and by gender subgroups. Relative belonging significantly predicted math achievement in the overall sample and among boys, but not among girls, suggesting possible gender differences in how comparative belonging relates to academic outcomes.

Authors

• Yushan Zhao, University of California - Davis

• Kevin A. Gee, University of California - Davis

• Caleb Wang Yuan, University of Arizona