Medical Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 1 of 1
-
ItemIn pursuit of belonging: a socio-ecological perspective to investigating school belonging in secondary school settings( 2015)Belonging is an essential aspect of psychological functioning. Schools offer unique opportunities to improve belonging for school-aged children through a broad network of groups and systems. Although research generally supports the importance of belonging for good mental health, research specifically on school belonging in educational settings has been fragmented and diluted by inconsistency in the use of terminology. The research of this thesis is comprised of three studies exploring belonging in schools through a socio-ecological perspective. In the first study, an extensive review of the literature was conducted. The aim was to respond to the problem statement: ‘What are the main themes that influence perceptions of school belonging in a secondary school setting?’ A systematic review identified seven themes which influence school belonging at the student level during adolescence in educational settings: academic motivation, emotional instability, personal characteristics, parent support, peer support, teacher support, and gender. Meta-analysis was then used to examine the effect sizes of the seven themes. With the exception of gender, all themes reported medium to large effect sizes, indicating that the themes identified are relevant and important factors with respect to fostering school belonging. These remaining six themes could be conceptualised into individual level themes (e.g., academic motivation, emotional instability, and personal characteristics) and microsystem level themes (e.g., parent support, peer support, and teacher support), and thus form the basis of a preliminary socio-ecological framework of school belonging. A second study was performed to investigate the priorities of secondary schools at the mesosystem level of a socio-ecological framework to examine whether school belonging was a theme found in school vision and mission statements in Victoria, Australia. A stratified sample of secondary school vision and mission statements across 308 schools was analysed using emergent coding and frequency analysis. Findings revealed that the theme of academic motivation was cited significantly more frequently than any other theme and that the themes of school belonging and mental health were cited by over half of the schools sampled. Given the importance of academic motivation for the schools sampled, a third study investigated the same school vision and mission statements to assess whether school belonging was related to student achievement. It was hypothesised that vision and mission statements endorsing greater levels of school belonging would be positively related to academic achievement at the macrosystem level. Using language analysis, the results showed a non-significant relationship between school belonging and achievement. The findings from the overall thesis are presented using a socio-ecological framework of school belonging, which outlines five levels of interconnected layers within an ecology that supports school belonging. This framework may be useful in improving perceptions of school belonging for secondary students through the design of policy, pedagogy, and teacher training. This PhD research makes an original contribution to the field of school belonging by applying a socio-ecological perspective and using innovative research methods. It encourages school leaders and educators to foster students’ sense of belonging by building qualities within the students and by changing school systems and processes.