Feeling connected at school linked to better teen wellbeing

NEW Australian research finds students’ sense of belonging and relationships at school are more strongly linked to future wellbeing than a range of other school characteristics.

School connectedness refers to how strongly a student feels connected with other people within their school community, including their sense of belonging and relationships with peers, teachers and others at school.

New research from Black Dog Institute has found that students who feel more connected to their school community have better wellbeing two years later, highlighting the important role relationships at school can play in supporting young people through adolescence.

The study, involving 1,548 Australian secondary school students across 35 schools, is the first in Australia to comprehensively examine a broad range of school-, staff- and student-level factors together to understand which are most strongly associated with adolescent mental health and wellbeing over time.

Researchers examined factors ranging from school location, sector and socioeconomic advantage to student-teacher ratios, income per student, student demographics, staff perceptions of school culture and wellbeing promotion, and students’ own experiences of feeling safe, supported and connected at school.

Of all the factors examined, students’ sense of connectedness to their school community in Year 8 was the only one associated with higher wellbeing two years later when students were in Year 10.

Lead author Sarah Stevens, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Adolescent Mental Health at Black Dog Institute, said the findings reinforce the importance of looking beyond the structural characteristics of a school when considering how schools can support student wellbeing.

“Schools are a major part of young people’s lives, and we often focus on things like resources, school type or where a school is located when thinking about what creates a mentally healthy environment for teens,” Stevens said.

“What stood out in our findings was the importance of students’ own experience of the school community, whether they feel connected to the people around them and feel that they belong in the community.

“Of all the school-related factors we examined, that sense of connectedness was the one that remained associated with better wellbeing two years later.

“Because connectedness is something schools can actively foster, these findings suggest it could be an important focus for policies and initiatives aimed at supporting student mental health and wellbeing. Schools looking to promote wellbeing should prioritise building strong, supportive relationships across their communities.”

At the beginning of the study, students who reported stronger school connectedness and a more positive school climate also reported higher wellbeing and lower psychological distress.

Two years later, school connectedness was the only factor examined that remained significantly associated with wellbeing. The study did not find an association between school connectedness and psychological distress at follow-up, reinforcing that wellbeing and psychological distress are related but distinct aspects of mental health.

These findings may suggest that school connectedness promotes mental health by strengthening students’ sense of positivity, purpose and meaning in life, even during periods of emotional difficulty, rather than by directly reducing symptoms of psychological distress.

Researchers also found no association between school-level characteristics, including school type, location, student-teacher ratio or socioeconomic advantage, and student wellbeing or psychological distress in this sample.

The findings suggest that factors often considered fixed or difficult to change, such as a school’s sector, demographic makeup or socioeconomic profile, may be less important for student mental health than the quality of students’ relationships and sense of belonging at school.

“What’s promising about our findings is that they suggest schools have an opportunity to better support students’ mental health by strengthening students’ sense of connection and belonging at school,” Stevens said.

“This doesn’t mean other aspects of the school environment aren’t important. Schools are complex communities and many structural factors are critical outcomes such as learning and academic achievement.

“But when it comes to supporting students’ wellbeing at school, we should be paying close attention to the relationships young people have with their peers, teachers and the broader school community.”

The researchers say the findings have important implications for policy and school-based mental health initiatives.