A Meta-Analysis of Suicidality, Depression and Sense of School Belonging in Adolescence

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

School belonging is a multidimensional concept of school climate, that describes how students feel they are supported and accepted within the school environment. Studies have shown that students who lack a sense of belonging to their school are more likely to suffer from emotional distress and mental health issues, such as depression and suicidality. Although there is a wealth of research that supports the protective role of school belonging in the successful psychosocial adjustment of adolescents, the findings have yet to the synthesized, due to inconsistent operationalization of school belonging. Accordingly, this meta-analytic study investigates the literature exploring associations between school belonging, depression, and suicidality (i.e., suicidal ideation and suicide attempts) in adolescent students (10-19 years of age) using a random effects model. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses were conducted to explore how the magnitude of the associations differed across sex, gender and sexual minority status, and stage of adolescence. Results, including 32 studies, support that greater school belonging is associated with reduced reports of suicidality ( r = -.248) and depression ( r = -.383). In subgroup analyses, these associations were also found to be consistent for gender and sexual minority students, and across all stages of adolescence. Overall, findings support the need to foster a sense of school belonging among adolescents and provide important implications for intervention efforts in schools.