Family background and classroom belonging among adolescent students in Finland

Abstract

<p>We study whether a family’s economic situation and parental educational level are<br>associated with classroom belonging among students in comprehensive secondary,<br>upper secondary general and upper secondary vocational education in Finland. We<br>also study whether there are educational-level differences in this possible association.<br>We use survey data from the Finnish School Health Promotion study from 2017<br>(N = 114,528). We conduct random effect linear probability models with schools as<br>the second-level grouping variable. The results show that family’s low economic<br>situation predicts a higher probability of lack of sense of classroom belonging in<br>Finland, despite the country having one of the world’s most equal educational systems<br>and comparably low economic inequality. Neither mother’s nor father’s educational<br>level has any association. A family’s low economic situation seems to predict<br>the lack of a sense of belonging most strongly in comprehensive secondary education<br>and most weakly in upper secondary vocational education. Our results slightly<br>support the proposed significance of context-specific hierarchies in determining the<br>association between economic resources and sense of belonging. A family having<br>a poor economic situation is not reflected in the sense of classroom belonging as<br>strongly in schools where students have a low average economic situation compared<br>to those where students have a high average economic situation. We suggest measures,<br>in addition to alleviating economic inequalities, to support the sense of school<br>belonging, especially for low-income students.<br></p>