School Belonging and the Role of Social and Emotional Competencies in Fostering an Adolescent's Sense of Connectedness to Their School

Abstract

The literature on school belonging is not well advanced in Australia and is complicated by a disparity in terminology (e.g., school belonging has been referred to as school connectedness, school bonding, affiliation with school, school community). Nevertheless, there is a common understanding that school belonging is vital and necessary for the social and emotional well-being of adolescence. This chapter will present a general overview of school belonging and associated empirical studies, present findings of a meta-analysis that has investigated the relationship between social and emotional competencies and school belonging, and discuss practical implications for how to increase social and e..