20,000 Leagues Away From Home: Finding Belonging in Canada—Social Connection, Discrimination, and Well-Being Among Non-Permanent-Resident Students

The secondary analysis examined whether close friend network size and discrimination were associated with local community belonging among full-time non-PR students in Canada, and whether belonging was associated with self-rated mental health as well as life satisfaction. The population used for the analysis was defined using the 2020 General Social Survey Social Identity File. The rules for eligibility identified 132 respondents. Linear regression models as well as survey-weighted ordinal models used 119 cases for the first analysis and 121 for the secondary analysis. For the uncertainty estimates, 500 bootstrap replicate weights were used. The close friend network size was not associated with belonging, OR = 1.03, 95% CI [0.80, 1.33], p = .803. Neither was discrimination associated with belonging, OR = 0.75, 95% CI [0.13, 4.37], p = .751. However, it was shown that belonging had a positive association with life satisfaction, B = 0.58, 95% CI [-0.08, 1.24], p = .086, as well as with self-rated mental health, OR = 1.85, 95% CI [0.91, 3.77], p = .089, although neither met the two-sided 0.05 pre-specified threshold. The final findings support the fact that replication was possible with larger samples that identify international student status and local relationships directly.