By Anika Mohan, Challenge Success Intern
When students transitioned from in-person to distance learning in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lack of precedence made the transition’s effects unknown.
For many elementary, middle, and high school students, this transition made it such that students were isolated from their peers and social environment during years key to their socioemotional development. Now, several years later, the impacts of this can be seen across many aspects of student well-being, particularly in the scope of students’ feelings of belonging within schools. Belonging is key to students’ feelings of acceptance within their school environments.
From their interactions with their peers to administrators, students who feel comfortable and accepted at school tend to have overall better mental health and interactions with those around them. Lower feelings of belonging, however, are often associated with student social and academic disengagement.
As a high school student, belonging for me finds its root in the relationships I have, not only with my peers but also with my teachers. When we transitioned to distance learning, classes became more transactional, almost like watching a video on the screen rather than being in an engaging and dynamic educational experience. Furthermore, I lost the opportunity to spend time with many of my friends, some of whom I remained close and connected with, but others who I drifted from.
This lack of emotional connection is a major contributor to low feelings of belonging and an inability to find a community that fully facilitates the emotional and academic environments of adolescents; this pattern persisted as we returned to in-person learning.
School Survey Data: Pre- vs Post-Pandemic
The Challenge Success-Stanford Survey of Student Experiences measures secondary students’ well-being, engagement, and belonging in school. In terms of students’ feelings of belonging, in 2018, 40.6% of students reported agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement, “I can really be myself at this school.” In 2023, 42.8% of students reported the same, demonstrating an overall increase in belonging pre- versus post-pandemic.
While there is a slight increase in the percentage of students who feel they can be themselves in schools, there remains a significant proportion of students who feel that they cannot truly be themselves in school, requiring our attention.
The Importance of Belonging and Trusted Support
Part of feeling a sense of belonging is having people in the school who support you. For me, going to school and knowing that there are educators who support and believe in me provides the reassurance I need to step out of my comfort zone and challenge myself, may it be academically or socially. In the survey, Challenge Success asks if students have an adult and a friend to go to with a personal problem.
From 2018 to 2023, there was an almost 10% increase in students who felt they had an adult at school they trusted to talk to, with 77% of students reporting they had a trusted adult in 2023 versus 67.5% reporting the same in 2018. Belonging was also noted to increase on average as student grade levels increased from 2018 to 2023, as is expected since students develop stronger connections the longer they spend in school.
However, when the students who did not have an adult to go to were asked in the survey why, a higher proportion of students did not feel comfortable going to adults at school in 2023 in fear of punishment, with 24.4% of students feeling unable to reach out to teachers for help in 2023, contrasted with 20% feeling the same in 2018. However, on average, an overall higher percentage of students feel they can rely on other students at school in 2023 versus 2018, with 89.9% of students feeling this way in 2023 versus 86.9% of students feeling this way in 2018. This ties to an approximate 5% increase in students spending time with their friends in free time between 2018 and 2023.
Related: 2024 Challenge Success Student Voice Report
Ideas for Transformation: From a Student Perspective
While student relationships are on the path to restoration post-pandemic, belonging levels may persist at low levels due to low feelings of connectedness between students and administrators/teachers. To help bridge this gap, from a student perspective, I believe we should encourage a portion of class time, especially at the beginning of the year, to be spent doing restorative circles, Socratic seminars, or other social engagement-based activities. This will facilitate student-teacher relationships in a way that allows students to see teachers as humans and mentors first, enabling them to move beyond having a simply transactional relationship.
In my own experience, Socratic seminars and restorative circles played a key role in my development of understanding of my teachers’ and peers’ perspectives throughout middle school, as we discussed weekend plans, broader goals, and our greatest fears to extend our relationships beyond the classroom. This enhanced my, and hopefully other students’ feelings of connectedness on campus, and inevitably, their levels of belonging as well.
Anika Mohan is an incoming freshman at Duke University. She has interned with the Challenge Success team, affiliated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education, throughout the 2023-2024 school year, working with Director of Research, Sarah Miles, Ph.D.