Neighborhood Disadvantage, Peer Acceptance, and Sense of Belonging among Middle School Students

Prior studies have demonstrated how living in economically disadvantaged and dangerous neighborhoods is associated with poorer developmental outcomes including depressed academic achievement, poorer physical and mental health, and lower school engagement. At the same time, studies have shown peer acceptance and school belonging are closely connected such that when youth feel more accepted by their classmates, they feel happier and more secure and exhibit greater academic motivation and classroom engagement. Our study builds on these prior bodies of work by examining how neighborhood disadvantage and the quality of peer relationships in school influence students’ sense of belonging in middle school. This study utilized data from the last wave of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Cohort (1998–1999) when students were in eighth grade combined with tract-level data from the 2000 Census to conduct multilevel regression analyses. The findings suggest youth living in more structurally disadvantaged neighborhoods reported lower school belonging at the end of eighth grade. Consistent with prior studies, we also found youth who felt more accepted by their peers had a greater sense of school belonging, regardless of the kinds of neighborhoods, schools, and families they were living in suggesting that peer acceptance may play a powerful role in creating school attachment during adolescence. The demonstrated impact of peer acceptance on school belonging highlights the importance of fostering opportunities for socialization through school-based programs and practices which may foster greater school attachment and improve educational attainment.