Student- and school-level factors related to school belongingness among high school students

ABSTRACT

Sense of belonging to school has received considerable attention due to the importance of belonging needs in social life and its broad academic and non- academic consequences. However, there is a dearth of research that identifies its multilevel predictors. Thus, this study aimed to investigate student-level and school-level variables related to sense of belonging to the school. The target population was all high school students (n=25000) in Urmia in the academic year 2018-2019. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was used to determine the association between school-level and student-level variables. Findings of the study showed that student-level variables, such as socio-economic status, parental involvement, and peer support were related to sense of belonging to school. Moreover, school-level variables including sense of fairness and teacher-student relations could explain the variance in school belonging.The results supported the idea that family, peers, and teachers play significant roles in the school experiences of students.

KEYWORDS:

• Sense of school belonging
• socio-economic status
• parental involvement
• academic-self efficacy
• sense of fairness
• school autonomy

Introduction

Morality optimizes the mutual benefit of people living together in groups (Rest, 1986, p. 1); therefore, it is central to human life (Carpendale, Hammond & Atwood, 2001). Durkheim distinguished three elements in morality: the spirit of discipline, the content of morality that Durkheim called it ‘attachment to social groups’, and autonomy (Lukes, 1973, p. 112).

Belonging is an ambiguous concept that has tended to escape the rigorous theorization of other key concepts in geography (Wright, 2015). Belonging is one of the basic human needs that is after physiological and the safety needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. According to Maslow (1970a), ‘if both the physiological and the safety needs are fairly well gratified, there will emerge the love and affection and belongingness needs’ (p. 43). Alderfer (1972) condensed Maslow’s five human needs into three categories: Existence, Relatedness and Growth. Relatedness needs concern the desires people have for relationships with significant others that can be characterized by a mutual sharing of thoughts and feelings. Moreover, belongingness theory proposed by Baumeister and Leary (1995) suggests that individuals have an evolved, and robust, need for closeness, and social belonging. Nohria, Lawrence and Wilson (2001) suggested that human beings have four basic needs: acquire objects and experiences; bond with others in long-term relationships of mutual care and commitment; learn and make sense of the world and of ourselves; and to defend ourselves, our loved ones, beliefs and resources from harm.

Anderman argued that positive outcomes occur when the perceived sense of belonging is satisfied (Anderman, 2002, p. 796). The need to belong as an innate universal quality has two main features: people need frequent personal contacts with the other person and they need to perceive that there is an interpersonal relationship that is marked by stability (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Wehlage, Rutter, Smith, Lesko & Fernandez (1989) described school belonging as students’ ‘social bond between themselves, the adults in the school, and the norms governing the institution’. And Goodenow defined sense of belonging in educational environments as ‘sense of being accepted, valued, included, and encouraged by others (teacher and peers) in the academic classroom setting and of feeling oneself to be an important part of the life and activity of the class’ (Goodenow, 1993b, p. 25).

Research background

Sense of belonging to school has attracted a great deal of attention owing to its broad academic and non-academic consequences. It has been argued that sense of belonging to school is positively associated with various educational outcomes, such as school attendance (Rosenfeld, Richman & Bowen, 1998), end-of-year grades (Roeser, Midgley & Urdan, 1996), academic performance and success (Barber & Olsen, 1997; Blum, 2005; Boston & Warren, 2017; Korpershoek, Canrinus, Fokkens-Bruinsma & de Boer, 2019; Waters, Cross & Runions, 2009), heightened motivation and effort (Sánchez, Colón & Esparza, 2005) and school completion rates (Connell, Halpern-Felsher, Clifford, Crichlow & Usinger, 1995). There is also a wide congruence on the buffering role of belonging against loneliness (Chipuer, 2001), mental illness (Shochet, Dadds, Ham & Montague, 2006), depression (Anderman, 2002), involving in fighting, bullying, and vandalism (Schapps, 2005; Wilson & Elliott, 2003), disruptive behaviour and emotional distress (Lonczak, Abbott, Hawkins, Kosterman & Catalano, 2002), engaging in smoking and drinking (Waters et al., 2009) and risk-taking behaviours related to substance and tobacco use (Goodenow, 1993a). Therefore, it can be said that school belongingness has benefits in the form of higher academic achievement, reduced costs for remedial educational programs and fighting substance use.

Predictors of school belongingness

Parents play a key role in the life of their children and social cognitive theory also suggests that youth absorb messages about suitable behaviour and socially accepted goals by observing and talking with important people in their lives (Bandura, 1977). Moreover, previous studies have shown that some family factors including parental education and expectations from their child (Entwisle & Baker, 1983), involvement in schooling (Jeynes, 2005; McNeal, 1999), family functioning (Byles, Byrne, Boyle & Offord, 1988) are associated with belonging to school.

Furthermore, given the time students spend at school and interactions which occur there, school features, school procedures, and the relationship between teachers and students as well as among students can influence the sense of belonging. Research efforts studying school-level contributors of belonging found out that social support (Ungar, 2004; Wentzel, 1998), school size and grade configuration (Anderman, 2002) can predict school belongingness. The results of a meta-analysis on the predictors of school belonging showed that teacher support and positive personal characteristics are the strongest predictors (Allen, Kern, Vella-Brodrick, Hattie $1 Waters, 2018). Sense of fairness is another factor that can be positively related to school belonging. Fairness means the quality of treating people equally or in a way that is right or reasonable (Cambridge dictionary). Yang argued that teachers should treat all the students fairly to improve academic achievement (Yang, 2004). Gage and Berliner (1996) suggested that the experience of injustice may negatively impact students’ personalities, sense of coherence and performance. Moreover, the need for justice is very important in adolescence because the degree of sensitivity to the ways people behave in interpersonal interactions is well developed in this period (Molinari & Mameli, 2018). School type is another school-level factor that can influence belongingness. While there is no consensus among researchers about the impact of school type on school belonging, there is some evidence that students may report higher levels of belonging in rural schools compared to urban schools (Brown & McIntire, 1996). Students may develop a greater sense of belonging in rural schools because of their sizes. Moreover, some researchers argued that an increase in autonomy is likely to result in a rise in the efficiency of public schools (Hoxby, 1999; Nechyba, 2003); therefore, school autonomy is likely associated with students’ belonging to school. Some researchers argued that students perform significantly better in schools that have autonomy in process and personnel decisions such as budget allocations, hiring and firing teachers, and the choice of textbooks and methods of instruction (Fuchs & Woessmann, 2007; Woessmann, 2001).

Importance of school belongingness in Iran

During recent decades, Iran has suffered from drug abuse and its consequences; the Iranians are victims of their location on the transit route to Europe. The drugs come from Afghanistan, which shares a 560-mile border with Iran. Although the rate of drug abuse is reported to be steady in some countries, it has shown an increasing trend in many developing societies including Iran (UNODC, 2012). Furthermore, unpublished data from the Welfare Organization and other health centres showed an overall decline in the average age of first use of drugs in Iran. Some studies have been shown that there has been an overall decline in the average age of first use of cigarettes. Azaripour et al. (2007) reported that two-thirds of Iranian smokers have experienced their first cigarette smoking at around 15 and the results of another study conducted by Meysamie et al. (2010) showed that the prevalence of tobacco smoking (including cigarette, water-pipe, and pipe) in people aged 15–64 is about 12.5% and the mean age of starting to smoke was 20.5 years. As the brain of a teenager is still developing, addiction can have more serious long-term cognitive and behavioural effects. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance protective factors against substance use and school belongingness is one of these factors. Studies have shown that while a strong sense of belonging in school has a buffering effect on the drug use behaviours and norms (Ford, 2009; McNeely, Nonnemaker & Blum, 2002; Napoli, Marsiglia & Kulis, 2003), school isolation and disconnectedness appear to contribute to higher rates of drug use and to earlier initiation into drugs (Hussong, Bird & Murphy, 1994).

Importance of school belongingness for adolescents

Adolescence is a period of risks; therefore, it is necessary to increase students’ sense of belonging to family and school to reduce their risk-taking. Although a detachment from school and academic performance and worsening the relationships between adults and parents are major risk factors during adolescence (Fleming, Catalano, Haggerty & Abbott, 2010) and connecting students to school is essential during this period of life (Blum, 2005), studies usually emphasize on achievement rather than belonging and belonging has mostly been investigated as an antecedent or mediator factor of student outcomes, and not as an outcome (Anderman & Freeman, 2004). Furthermore, although the interaction between the individual and the environment produces school belongingness, only a few studies have considered the combined contribution of student and school-related factors (Faircloth & Hamm, 2005; Nichols, 2008). Thus, a more rigorous approach to identifying its student and school-level predictors is needed.

Purpose and research questions

Due to positive outcomes of sense of belonging to school and its possible buffering effects against many risk factors, the present study focuses on combined contribution of student and school-related factors to sense of belonging to school as an outcome variable. Thus, the objectives of the present study are as follows:

- To investigate if there is any significant relationship between student-level variables (socio-economic status, parental involvement, academic self-efficacy and peer support) and students’ sense of belonging to school.

- To investigate if there is any significant relationship between school-level variables (school type, sense of fairness, school autonomy, teacher–student relations) and students’ sense of belonging to school.

Method

The sample for this study was part of a project examining educational inequality in West Azarbaijan province of Iran. The target population was all high school students in Urmia (centre of West Azarbaijan province) in the academic year 2018–2019 (N = 25,000). As students’ sense of school belonging declines over time (Anderman, 2003), grade was controlled and the 11^th graders (both male and female students) were chosen as a cluster. The students were from 16 to 18 years old. A total of 1200 students were selected randomly from all 60 schools according to the true proportion of gender, type of school and academic discipline in the population.

Permissions were obtained from West Azarbaijan educational institutions, educational districts, and the principals. The principals allowed the researchers to distribute questionnaires after obtaining permission from the parents. Questionnaires were administered in the first semester of the 2018–2019 academic year. Students completed self-report questionnaires administered by authors in 30 min in their normal classrooms and teachers were often present. The number of returned usable student questionnaires was 1003 (83.5% response rate). The principals filled out their questionnaire in their office and all of them returned the questionnaire.

It should be mentioned that Iranian students attend primary and secondary school for 12 years. They attend primary school for 6 years and then go to secondary school. The secondary school program consists of two 3-year cycles (programs). All schools are single-sex ones. There are three kinds of schools: selective, private and public. Selective schools select their students with entrance exams and they have better educational facilities and their students often achieve better results in University Entrance Exam than those studying in other types of schools. Principals of these schools can choose their own teachers among permanent teachers employed by the ministry of education. Private schools charge tuition fees and there are significant differences within them in tuition fees and academic performance. Public schools offer free education and often enrol based on residency address.

Measures

School-level model entailed variables that were only affected by school context (sense of fairness at school, principal’s autonomy, school type, and teacher–student relations), while student-level variables were those variables mostly affected by characteristics of students, family and social life.

Student-level data

Data on the specific demographic variables related to the objectives of this study were collected from the schools’ official records. The student-level data were collected through following questionnaires filled by the students.

Student sense of belonging scale: It was measured using student responses on items from the PISA student survey. PISA (2000) student questionnaire includes items to measure two components of student engagement at school – sense of belonging and participation. The component of sense of belonging has eight items, for each item, the stem is as follows: “School is a place where:‘ I feel like an outsider,’ (reverse coded), ‘I make friends easily,’ ‘I feel like I belong’,‘ I feel awkward and out of place,’ (reverse coded), ‘Other students seem to like me,’ I feel lonely,’ (reverse coded),‘ I do not want to go to school,’ (reverse coded), and ‘I often feel bored’ (reverse coded). We performed Cronbach’s alpha test on 8 items that represent the student sense of belonging and we received α = .510. After eliminating items 4, 7 and 8, Cronbach’s alpha was α = .805, which was good enough to confirm internal consistency.

Socio-economic status scale: For analysing a family’s SES in this study, the combination of the parent’s educational level, the parent’s occupation and family income was used. International Socioeconomic Index of Occupational Status (ISEI) that has been proposed by Ganzeboom, De Graaf & Treiman (1992) was used in the present study. And the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) has been utilized for scoring the parents’ education. Total family income was the sum of all the income from all members of the household.

Parental involvement scale: Parental involvement entailed four dimensions identified by Fan (2001): communication, parent educational aspiration (for the child), participation and supervision. Agreement with each item was rated on a 4-point scale, ranging from 1 (almost never) to 4 (almost always). The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the reliability of the scale was determined as (α = .734).

Peer support scale: The peer support at the school scale (Ladd, Kochenderfer & Coleman, 1996) was utilized. It had eleven items measured on a 3-point scale (1 = never, 2 = sometimes, 3 = lots of times). Higher scores showed greater feelings of peer support. The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the reliability of the scale was determined as (α = .800)

Academic self-efficacy: College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (CASES), created by Owen and Froman (1988), was used. A 5-point Likert-type scale measures degrees of confidence ranging from quite a lot (5 points) to very little (1 point). Higher scores indicate higher college academic self-efficacy. The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the reliability of the whole scale was determined as (α = .800).

School-level data

School type: Regular (private and public) and selective.

Sense of fairness: Based on Greenberg’s (1987) organizational justice theory scale, sense of fairness scale was developed. It measures three-justice rules including procedural, distributive and interpersonal rules through nine items that measured fair opportunities, fair treatment and fair reward and punishment in school. These items were assessed on a 4-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree). It was filled by the students. Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was quite acceptable (α = 0.83).

Student–teacher relation: It was evaluated by five items from the PISA student survey. The questions were assessed on a 4-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree), with positive values corresponding to more positive relationships between students and teachers. It was also filled by the students. The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the reliability of the scale was determined as (α = .803).

School autonomy: The principal in each school was asked to rate how much decision-making influence had over these issues: student policies (establishing student disciplinary policies, establishing student assessment policies, approving students for admittance to school), personnel management (appointing teachers, dismissing teachers, establishing teachers’ starting salaries, determining teachers’ salary increases), financial resources (formulating the school budget, allocating budget within the school), and curriculum and instruction (choosing which textbooks are used, determining course content, deciding which courses are offered). This scale has 13 items measured the school autonomy via Likert’s 5-degree scale with the options ranging from not at all to a lot (OECD, 2005). Its reliability coefficient was reported as (α = .939).

To examine the validity of the questionnaires, exploratory factor analysis was used by Varimax rotation of principal components (Table 1). KMO value was .73 and Bartlett value was 1684.2 which were significant at .01%. Cumulative variance was 50% and the results were confirmed.

Table 1. Factor loading for rotated component matrix for the responses to student questionnaire

Scale	Range of factor loading
Student sense of belonging scale	.75-.83
Socio- economic status scale	.65-.71
Parental involvement scale	.63-.78
Peer support scale	.68-.85
Student-teacher relation scale	.69-.80

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy .73. Bartlett’s test of sphericity 1684.2, P< 0. 01.

Findings

Table 2 represents descriptive statistics of each of the research variables and correlations among variables. As seen in Table 2, the highest correlation was between teacher–student relation and sense of fairness (r = .416, p = .01) and the lowest correlation was between school autonomy and peer support (r = .110, p = .01).

Table 2. Descriptive statistics

variables	N	mean	SD	Minimum	Maximum	correlation
Student level
SES	1003	3.53	1.7	1	9	.353**
Parental involvement	1003	2.51	.437	1.31	6.10	.189**
Teacher- Student relation	1003	3.63	.54	1	5	.230**
Peer support	1003	2.34	.56	1.04	5	.258**
School level
School climate	60	2.7	.23	2.33	3.51
School autonomy	60	3.5	1.10	1.22	5
Physical infrastructure	60	2.69	.24	2.09	3.20
Outcome: belonging	1003	2.21	.577	1	4	1

Note: ** p < .01

Multilevel regressions

Hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) was used to determine the association between school-level and student-level factors with students’ sense of school belonging. HLM was the preferred analysis because the aforementioned variables were measured at different levels: SES, parental involvement, academic self-efficacy, and peer support were measured at the student-level. School size, sense of fairness, teacher–student relation and school autonomy were measured at the school level. This statistical model allowed us to model nested data more appropriately than a regular multiple linear regression.

ICCs

First, the variance between schools in school belongingness was investigated. Therefore, school belongingness was entered into the HLM analysis as a dependent variable, with no predictors in the model. Results indicated that a significant portion of the variance in perceived school belonging (10%) lies between schools. Table 3 shows the results of model 1(intercept only model).

Table 3. Intercept-only model

Intercept only model/One way ANOVA	γ	SE	ICC
L1: Belonging ij = β0j + rij	2.93***	.02***	.10
L2: β0j = γ00 + u
Belonging ij = γ00 + u0j+ rij	p < 0.001***

Student-level model

A student-level model was run with entering student-level variables as predictors of school belongingness. The model is expressed by the following equation:

$\begin{array}{rl}& Belongingij=\beta 0j+\beta 1j\ast \left(SESij\right)+\beta 2j\ast \left(Involvementij\right)+\beta 3j\ast \left(Self-Efficacyij\right)\\ & +\beta 4j\ast (PeerSupportij)+rij\end{array}$

Table 4 shows the results. The strongest student-level predictor of belonging to school was SES (y = .22, p < .001). The gamma coefficient of .22 shows that a 1-unit increase in SES produces a .22 standard deviation increase in belonging. Other results showed that belonging to school was related positively to parental involvement (y = .08, p < .05), students’ academic self-efficacy (y = .062, p < .05), and peer support (y = .13 p < .001).

Table 4. Student-level hierarchical linear model

Variable	y	SE
SES	.22**	.02
Parental involvement	.083*	.031
Teacher- Student relation	.062*	.032
Peer support	. 13**	.03

Note: p < .001** p < .05*

Full model

For the full model, school-level variables were entered into the model as predictors of the intercept. This allowed for an examination of the relations between both student and school-level characteristics and school belonging. This model is expressed by the following equation:

$\begin{array}{rl}& \beta 0j=\gamma 00+\gamma 01\ast \left(Autonomyj\right)+\gamma 02\ast \left(Type\right)+\gamma 03\ast \left(Fairnessj\right)\gamma 04\\ & \ast \left(T-SRelationj\right)+u0j\end{array}$

The results are presented in Table 5. The results of this model indicated that while the sense of school belonging was positively related to sense of fairness (r = . 19, p < .05) and teacher–student relations (r = .15, p < .05), school autonomy and school type were not associated with the sense of belonging to school.

Table 5. Intercepts as outcome model

variable	y	SE
Intercept	2.92**	.01
School level
Autonomy	−.018	.02
School type	−.028	.008
School climate	.19*	.08
School infrastructure	.15*	.02
Student level
SES	.22**	.02
Parental involvement	.083*	.03
Teacher- student relation	.062*	.03
Peer support	.13**	.03

Note. For school type, 1 = regular schools (public and private), 2 = selective schools

p < .001** p < .05*.

Discussion

It has been argued that schools should try to connect the students to school and they should also make any effort to reconnect the students who feel disconnected from school (Blum, 2005; Hargreaves, Earl & Ryan, 1996). Therefore, addressing the problem of belonging to school requires researchers to investigate the factors influencing it.

Results obtained from this data analysis showed that socio-economic status was related to students’ sense of school belonging. This is to a significant degree consistent with the results of previous studies (Chiu, Chow, McBride & Mol, 2016; OECD, 2003), they argued that students from low socioeconomic status families are more likely to be disconnected from school.

Moreover, parental involvement had a significant positive relationship with students’ sense of school belonging that is in line with previous studies (Jeynes, 2005; McNeal, 1999). It can be said that the same processes that affect academic performance influence school belongingness. Parental involvement has variety of positive results including increased school attendance, increased sense of well-being among students, more positive perceptions of the school, higher academic achievement, and increased perception of belonging at secondary school (Epstein, 1990; Fantuzzo, McWayne, Perry & Childs, 2004; Greenwood & Hickman, 1991; Topor, Keane, Shelton & Calkins, 2010). Previous studies have shown that students whose parents monitor and regulate their activities, provide emotional support and are generally more involved in their schooling are less likely to leave school early (Astone & McLanahan, 1991; Rumberger, 1995).

Academic self-efficacy was also related to the sense of belonging. Pajares (1996) stated that self-efficacy is a strong predictor of college student performance. Teachers can play a vital role in improving their students’ self-efficacy. For example, Margolis and Mccabe (2006) argued that teachers can strengthen struggling learners’ self-efficacy by planning moderately challenging tasks, using peer models and teaching specific learning strategies. Schunk pointed out that teachers can enhance perceptions of efficacy in their students by training them to make use of a variety of learning strategies such as goal-setting, strategy training, modelling and feedback (Schunk, 1995). Moreover, peer support was associated with belonging to school. Peer relationships at school have been found to contribute most to students’ wellbeing and actual transition experience (Waters, Lester & Cross, 2014b; Weare & Gray, 2003). The schools can increase effective relationships between students by using extra-curricular activities (Lester & Cross, 2015), team learning exercises, collaborative learning, group research projects that break down social isolation by integrating students across academic ability and ethnicity.

The findings also suggested that teacher–student relation was positively associated with the students’ sense of school belonging. It has been argued that the quality of teacher–child relationship is a stronger predictor of behavioural than of academic outcomes (Hamre & Pianta, 2001) and teacher support is one of the strongest predictors of school belonging (Allen et al., 2018). Furthermore, as teachers play an important role in shaping children’s experience in school (Hamre & Pianta, 2001), it has been argued that support from teachers or other adults that encourages engagement within the school setting serves as a block against initiation into at-risk behaviour (Drolet, Arcand, Ducharme & Leblanc, 2013; McNeely & Falci, 2004) and children’s ability to form relationships with their teachers predict later academic and behavioural adjustment in school (Hamre & Pianta, 2001). Effective teachers can create positive interactions and connectedness in the classroom in a number of ways, such as spending time with all the students, making an effort to know them and their interests, using active listening techniques, using positive feedback and encouragement, believing in the students’ abilities, caring about them, providing interactive teaching and learning styles (Lester & Cross, 2015) and rewarding a variety of student achievements and recognizing student progress – not only top performance (Blum, 2005). When teachers create a clear classroom structure with consistent expectations for behaviour and performance and use interactive teaching and learning styles, they provide a healthy setting in which students can learn better and have opportunities to interact effectively with each other. But teachers cannot create this environment by themselves. Without a supportive administration and parents, teachers will not be able to effectively create this supportive environment.

Moreover, students’ sense of fairness was positively associated with their sense of school belonging. Equity theory (Adams, 1965) and social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) are usually used to explain the sense of fairness among employees and the human relationships (Adams, 1965; Blau, 1964). When students perceive that they are in a transparent, just and fair environment, they display greater emotional stability and achieve better academic performance (Yang, 2004). However, if students perceive that they are treated unfairly or with disrespect, they despise school and avoid going to class, which causes lower academic performance, emotional depression, and bad interpersonal relationships (Finn & Rock, 1997). McNeely and Falci (2004) found that students who feel their teachers are fair and care about them are less likely to initiate six health risk behaviours (smoking tobacco, drinking to the point of getting drunk, marijuana use, suicidal ideation or attempt, sexual intercourse, and weapon-related violence). It has been argued that justice should be considered as an additional basic need in school settings, as it fosters intrinsic student motivation and engagement (Molinari & Mameli, 2018). Therefore, schools should provide an open and fair environment for students to enhance their sense of school belonging.

Concerning other school-level variables including school type and management autonomy, the results showed no association. In this study, the selective and regular high schools were compared. It should be mentioned that all selective schools have an entrance exam to identify the best students, and the competition is intense. These schools have better educational facilities such as well-equipped labs for science and effective libraries and there are higher expectations and more achievement press in comparison to regular schools. The results showed that students studying in selective high schools have a lower sense of belonging because high expectations for literacy performance and an emphasis on academic subjects may cause many students to become disaffected from school (OECD, 2003). This suggests that belonging to school is related to factors associated with school practice rather than the quality of the school infrastructure. Moreover, school autonomy could not explain the variance in students’ sense of belonging. School autonomy is a multidimensional construct that can be defined by who holds decision-making power and which areas of control are covered by this exercise of authority (Chubb & Moe, 1990; Barrera-Osorio et al., 2009). Our findings showed that autonomy management did not have a significant effect on student belongingness, the evidence inconsistent with this hypothesis was presented in the 2013 Program for International Student Assessments report (PISA, 2013).

To summarize, based on the results of this study, while management autonomy and school type did not appear to be related to sense of belonging to school in this particular study, socio-economic status, parental involvement, sense of fairness, teacher–student relation, academic self-efficacy, and peer support did appear to be associated with sense of school belonging.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Soheila Ahmadi

Soheila Ahmadi, holds a master degree from the University of Tehran, and she studied PhD Under the supervision of Dr. Mohammad Hassani at Urmia University. Since she is a teacher, she knows educational system very well. She is interested in carrying out research in organizational attitudes as well as educational inequality.

Mohammad Hassani

Mohammad Hassani, received his master degree from Tehran University and his PhD from the University of Dijon. Since completing his graduate studies, Dr. Hassani has taught at the University of Urmia. His research interests have focused on organizational attitudes, accountability in organizations, human resource management and educational inequality. He has authored numerous articles, chapters, and presentations on educational administration (in English, French and Persian).

Farid Ahmadi

Farid Ahmadi, PhD, is professor of information technology management in Department of Computer Engineering at Urmia University of Technology. He has served as executive manager and organization and management consultant in both public and private sectors for more than 10 years. He is the author of the book “public interoperable networks “selected in Iran Conference on Administration as well as research centre of Iran parliament in 2017. He has authored more than 20 journal articles, and 15 international conference papers. His research interests encompass organizational attitudes, accountability in organizations, human resource management and gender difference. He may be reached via email at [email protected]