Differences in the age-varying association of school belonging with socioemotional flourishing among minority and non-minority college and university students

This research summary can be incorporated into a lecture or shared with students as a reading to demonstrate how psychological science explores the diversity of human experience. This resource can also be used to encourage students to identify the major components of a research study (i.e., the hypothesis or study question, sample, method, and findings). Students can be asked to identify potential limitations of the study and encouraged to discuss the implications for our understanding of human behavior. Keywords highlight how concepts within and across pillars are incorporated into a single research study.

This study centered on exploring school belonging (i.e., the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others in the school social environment) and mental health flourishing (a measure of positive mental health and socioemotional wellbeing) in college students with different identities. The researcher also looked into whether the relationship between school belonging and mental health flourishing was different across groups with different identities. The sample included racial and ethnic minority (REM) students (n=10,539), sexual and gender minority (SGM) students (n=6,718), cisgender heterosexual students (n=19,492), and white students (n=16,444). The author found that the REM and SGM students endorsed significantly lower school belongingness and mental health flourishing compared to their white and cisgender heterosexual counterparts. One exception to this pattern was that older REM students (those between the ages of 24–26) reported significantly higher school belonging than white students. The relationship between school belonging and flourishing was similar for younger REM and white students. After age 22, school belonging was more strongly connected with flourishing for white students than it was for REM students. This pattern may suggest that there are other important contributors to flourishing for REM college students such as ethnic minority (i.e., within-group) identity. Interestingly, the connection between belongingness and flourishing was strongest for SGM college students. One possible explanation for this finding offered by the author is that an accepting and supportive school climate may be particularly important for SGM youth who experience high levels of family rejection during adolescence.

Parr, N. J. (2022). Differences in the age-varying association of school belonging with socioemotional flourishing among minority and non-minority college and university students. Journal of American College Health, 70(5), 1336–1340. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1808662opens in new window

Race, Mental Health, Culture, Race, Racism, Gender, Sexual Orientation

The development of resources to broaden diversity and representation in the teaching of high school psychology resources is an APA Committee of Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools initiative supported by funding from the American Psychological Foundation David and Carol Myers Fund. This resource was developed by Eric Castro, Shawn C.T. Jones, PhD, Allyn Olsen, and Catherine Sanderson, PhD.