Bidirectional Associations between School Belonging and Self-Esteem among Diverse High School Students

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Introduction
The present study aims to understand the directionality between school belonging and self-esteem among adolescents in high school. The extant literature has discussed how school belonging and self-esteem are correlated with one another. Some studies have used school belonging as the predictor for self-esteem (Roeser & Eccles, 1998), while others have used self-esteem to predict school belonging (Perry & Lavins-Merillat, 2018). However, few studies have explored the directionality between these two variables longitudinally. The present longitudinal study followed high school students at three time points (9th grade, 10th grade, and 11th grade) and used cross-lagged panel modeling to understand the directionality between school belonging and self-esteem.
Method
Ninth-grade public high school students (N = 557) were recruited from three ethnically diverse high schools in California and Oregon and followed across three time points: 9th -11th grade (gender breakdown: 50% girl; ethnic breakdown: 30% Latinx, 27% White, 16% Asian/Pacific Islander, 18% Multiethnic, 6% Black, and 3% Other). Students completed surveys related to school belonging and self-esteem. School belonging was measured with a 7-item scale (Fuligni, Witkow, & Garcia, 2005), e.g., “My school is important to the way I think of myself as a person”; 5-point scale: 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Self-esteem was measured with a modified 6-item subscale of Harter’s (1987) Self-Perception Profile for Children. For each item, students were presented with two different types of individuals and asked to choose which one was more like them (e.g., Some people are often unhappy with themselves, but other people are pretty pleased with themselves). Then, students were instructed to decide how true the statement was for them (Sort of true for me or Really true for me).
Results
The results for the cross-lagged panel model is displayed in Figure 1. The final model included equality constraints to make the paths equal across time. The model fit was adequate based on standard fit indices (Hu & Bentler, 1999): χ2(10, 200) = 21.05, p = .02, CFI = .98, TLI = .97. RMSEA = .07. SRMR = .04. The cross-lagged model showed that self-esteem (β = .67, p < .001) and school belonging (β = .14, p < .001) predicted future self-esteem. The results also showed that school belonging (β = .56, p < .001) and self-esteem (β = .13, p < .01) predicted future school belonging.
Discussion
The findings from the study provides evidence that the association between school belonging and self-esteem is bidirectional. This indicates that the association between school belonging and self-esteem is reciprocal over time meaning higher school belonging will lead to higher self-esteem and vice versa. Implications for this bidirectional finding is that schools should focus on both school belonging and self-esteem when trying to improve their students’ well-being. Interventions can focus on the interpersonal (school belonging) and intrapersonal (self-esteem) pathways to improve the student’s well-being.

Authors

• Tseng Vang, University of California - Davis
  Presenting Author

• Melissa R Witkow, Willamette University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Adrienne Nishina, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author