Clarifying the Implications of Gender Role Attitudes on the Sense of School Belonging

• In Event: 512 - Section on Sex and Gender Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Inequalities and Education

Abstract

The extent to which students feel accepted and supported at school, is rather predictive for schooling outcomes. In view of the differential academic successes of boys and girls, it is interesting to examine the gendered pattern of school belonging. In search for predictors of school belongingness, studies barely drew attention to the possible obstructing impact of conventional gender role attitudes of individual students and school cultures. This study examines the relationship between gender and gender role attitudes on the one hand and sense of school belonging on the other hand, among a sample of 6380 students at the start of the 7th grade in 2012 in 59 Flemish schools. The results of multilevel analyses indicate that boys show lower levels of school belonging than girls. Overall, students with more conventional conceptions about gender roles, showed less school belongingness than students with more egalitarian beliefs. Moreover, students’ attitudes related to gender roles, are strongly shared at the school level in order we can speak of gender role student cultures. Students enrolled in more traditional gender role student cultures expose weaker sense of belonging.

Authors

• Ellen Huyge, University of Ghent

• Dimitri Van Maele, University of Ghent

• Mieke Van Houtte, Ghent University