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School Belonging Predicts Whether an Emerging Adult Will Be Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) After School

American Psychological Association
Journal of Educational Psychology
Authors:
Philip Parker at Australian Catholic University
Philip Parker
Kelly-Ann Allen at Monash University (Australia)
Kelly-Ann Allen
Rhiannon Parker
Rhiannon Parker
Rhiannon Parker
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Jiesi Guo at Institution for Positive Psychology and Education
Jiesi Guo
  • Institution for Positive Psychology and Education
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Abstract

Children who are excluded from school may end up being excluded from other social institutions. Yet little research has considered whether low school belonging is a risk factor for not being in education, employment, or training after graduation. Using two longitudinal cohorts from Australia (N = 14,082; 51% Boys), we explored this relationship. Controlling for a range of individual and school-level covariates, we found that low school belonging at age 15 is a consistent and practically significant predictor of not in education, employment, or training (NEET) status at ages 16 to 20. We conclude that this relationship is unlikely to be the product of low school belonging lowering the chances of students graduating high school. Rather, low school belonging had a unique association with NEET beyond graduation. Given that NEET represents a range of vulnerabilities, educational policy and practice must find ways for schools to create opportunities for all students to feel included, valued, and accepted
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School Belonging Predicts Whether an Emerging Adult Will Be Not in
Education, Employment, or Training (NEET) After School
Philip Parker
1
, Kelly-Ann Allen
2, 3
, Rhiannon Parker
4
, Jiesi Guo
1
, Herbert W. Marsh
1, 5
,
Geetanjali Basarkod
1
, and Theresa Dicke
1
1
Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University
2
School of Educational Psychology and Counselling, Faculty of Education, Monash University
3
Centre for Wellbeing Science, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne
4
Centre for Social Impact, University of New South Wales
5
Department of Education, University of Oxford
Children who are excluded from school may end up being excluded from other social institutions. Yet little
research has considered whether low school belonging is a risk factor for not being in education, employ-
ment, or training after graduation. Using two longitudinal cohorts from Australia (N= 14,082; 51% Boys),
we explored this relationship. Controlling for a range of individual and school-level covariates, we found
that low school belonging at age 15 is a consistent and practically significant predictor of not in education,
employment, or training (NEET) status at ages 16 to 20. We conclude thatthis relationship is unlikely to be
the product of low school belonging lowering the chances of students graduating high school. Rather, low
school belonging had a unique association with NEET beyond graduation. Given that NEET represents a
range of vulnerabilities, educational policy and practice must find ways for schools to create opportunities
for all students to feel included, valued, and accepted.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Every child has the right to belong. Ensuring that all children feel like they belong at school is a
central goal of education. This is because of the importance of belonging for children’s total well-
being. In this research, we provide evidence that school belonging is an important predictor of
whether a young person will not go on to further education, employment, or training (otherwise
known as NEET) after leaving compulsory schoolings. We show that school belonging is a stronger
predictor than socioeconomic status. We also show that students who feel like they belong at school
are less likely to become NEET even if they do not graduate from high school. This implies that
educational policy needs to focus on ensuring that all children feel supported, valued, and included.
Keywords: school belonging, NEET, emerging adults, longitudinal
Supplemental materials: https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000733.supp
This article was published Online First April 21, 2022.
Philip Parker https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4604-8566
Kelly-Ann Allen https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6813-0034
Rhiannon Parker https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2156-3980
Jiesi Guo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2102-803X
Herbert W. Marsh https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1078-9717
Geetanjali Basarkod https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3708-2751
Theresa Dicke https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8868-2242
Philip Parker served as lead for conceptualization and writing the
original draft. Kelly-Ann Allen, Rhiannon Parker, Jiesi Guo, Herbert W.
Marsh, Geetanjali Basarkod, and Theresa Dicke contributed to writing,
reviewing and editing the article.
We thank the National Centre for Vocational Education Research who
provided the data for this article. In particular, we thank Ronnie Semo for
her guidance in developing the NEET Index.
The data are available at https://dataverse.ada.edu.au/dataverse/ada?q=
LSAY
The experiment materials are available at https://github.com/pdparker/
belonging_NEET
The preregistered design is accessible at https://osf.io/2eugb
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Philip
Parker, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic
University, 33 Berry Street, North Sydney, 2060 NSW Australia. Email:
philip.parker@acu.edu.au
1881
Journal of Educational Psychology
©2022 American Psychological Association 2022, Vol. 114, No. 8, 1881–1894
ISSN: 0022-0663 https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000733
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
... Supporting school identity involves helping all pupils to develop a positive learner identity, where their learning styles, aptitudes, abilities and interests are celebrated, and they can build a secure sense of belonging in school. School belonging has been identified as a mechanism in young people's wellbeing outcomes (Bonnell et al., 2019;Hamilton, 2024;Khanna et al., 2024) that can mitigate against later depression, anxiety and stress (Allen et al., 2024) and is predictive of NEET status (Philip et al., 2022). Established views of school belonging highlight its subjective nature in terms of it representing 'the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others in the school environment' (Goodenow & Grady, 1993). ...
... However, more recently, students' perceptions of school climate (the quality and character of school life) have been identified as the single most important factor impacting their wellbeing (Hinze et al., 2024), pointing to environmental, cultural and organisational aspects of school life as the factors shaping students' subjective perceptions of belonging. More recent studies expand on this, understanding school belonging as a complex process of identity construction that is negotiated interpersonally, socially and spatially (McGillicuddy, 2021;Philip et al., 2022;Russell & Mantilla-Blanco, 2022). School belonging involves identification with school (Alink et al., 2023) in that students feel a sense of membership with their school community (e.g., as a student, on a sports team, as a lunchtime monitor) but this 'cannot be mandated' (Riley, 2022, p. 61) or enforced upon them, but rather willingly assumed. ...
... Different cohorts of students do not benefit equally or in the same ways from nurturing school environments, nor experience the same challenges (OECD, 2024). Together these flag the importance of an intersectional perspective that considers the 'multiplicative rather than additive influences of social location variables' (Philip et al., 2022) and the need for a mechanism to support schools to take a holistic view of wellbeing which can account for the diversity of experiences, challenges and support that young people experience. ...
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... The long-term impact of school belonging is supported by Parker et al. (2022) who investigated the association between it and students later being "not in education, employment or training" (NEET). They reported, "Youth who feel excluded from school experience further exclusion from entry into many major social institutions. ...
... For example, some studies have found girls have a stronger sense of belonging at school (Allen et al., 2018;Parker et al., 2022), although Allen (2020) noted PISA findings that Australian girls felt more marginalised at school, and the Headspace (2022) report found young women (including both students and young women up to aged 25 years) were more likely to feel they did not belong. Allen et al. (2018) found race was not a significant factor in belonging at school, while noting the limited number of studies considering it. ...
... Allen et al. (2018) found race was not a significant factor in belonging at school, while noting the limited number of studies considering it. But Parker et al. (2022) found a stronger sense of school belonging among migrants, and Allen (2020) noted PISA data that Indigenous students felt more marginalised at school. De Bortoli (2018) noted Australian-born students "reported a significantly lower sense of belonging" (p. ...
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