School connectedness may offset mental health risks associated with childhood adversity. The present study examined the potential protective effects of school connectedness against childhood adversity when predicting adolescent mental health outcomes in 9,964 individuals (51% female, 81% white) from the Millennium Cohort Study. Structural equation models were fitted to examine the longitudinal relationships between childhood adversity, school connectedness, and adolescent mental health. Childhood adversity was a risk factor, predicting greater internalizing and externalizing problems and lower levels of positive mental health. School connectedness was a promotive factor as it predicted fewer mental health problems and greater positive mental health. Furthermore, school connectedness at age 11 was protective against childhood adversity when predicting internalizing and externalizing problems at age 14. That is, students with a history of adversity who felt more connected to school were less likely to exhibit internalizing and externalizing symptoms than those who felt less connected to school. Only school connectedness at age 11 was protective against childhood adversity, indicating that feeling connected to school at younger ages may disrupt processes linking childhood adversity to adolescent mental health. Schools should foster students’ feelings of connectedness to protect vulnerable individuals and benefit all pupils’ mental health.

Extant studies of special education teacher wellbeing often focus on negative aspects, such as stress, burnout and the consequent attrition from teaching, the latter occurring with increasing frequency in the field of special education. In this article, the authors use the OECD teacher wellbeing framework to conceptualise special education teacher wellbeing as a positive multidimensional construct, making the case for uncoupling special education teacher wellbeing from mainstream teacher wellbeing given the almost paradigmatic difference in roles, responsibilities, and educational context within Australian schools. The (limited) literature reveals numerous possibilities for supporting and promoting special education teacher wellbeing with salient wellbeing-promoting factors, such as teacher self-efficacy, connectedness, professional development, and class structure. Further empirical studies harnessing these factors will help improve working conditions and the wellbeing of special education teachers.

Adolescents with emotional and behavioural disorders (EBD) continue to struggle in the school environment. They may have difficulty connecting to their school environment as their engagement in challenging behaviour may have led to frequent school removal and high rates of school dropout, resulting in a breakdown of their school connectedness. The purpose of this study was to evaluate levels of school connectedness for adolescents with EBD attending self-contained classrooms and compare them to adolescents in general education. The School Connectedness Questionnaire (SCQ), measuring school bonding, school attachment, school engagement, and school climate, was administered to 50 students with EBD and to 50 general education students (n = 100). A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted. The results indicated that of the four domains of school connectedness, students with EBD reported significantly higher levels of school climate. These youth also reported significant differences on four specific items representing three of the four construct domains. The results indicate that adolescents with EBD may experience school differently. Researchers should continue to examine specially designed programs for students with EBD that emphasise explicit behavioural and academic expectations and social and emotional skill development and its impact on school connectedness for adolescents with EBD.

School connectedness, a construct indexing supportive school relationships, has been posited to promote resilience to environmental adversity. Consistent with prominent calls in the field, we examined the protective nature of school connectedness against two dimensions of early adversity that index multiple levels of environmental exposure (violence exposure, social deprivation) when predicting both positive and negative outcomes in longitudinal data from 3,246 youth in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (48% female, 49% African American). Child and adolescent school connectedness were promotive, even when accounting for the detrimental effects of early adversity. Additionally, childhood school connectedness had a protective but reactive association with social deprivation, but not violence exposure, when predicting externalizing symptoms and positive function. Specifically, school connectedness was protective against the negative effects of social deprivation, but the effect diminished as social deprivation became more extreme. These results suggest that social relationships at school may compensate for low levels of social support in the home and neighborhood. Our results highlight the important role that the school environment can play for youth who have been exposed to adversity in other areas of their lives and suggest specific groups that may especially benefit from interventions that boost school connectedness.

Over the past decade, researchers have called for a reconceptualisation of school connectedness. A review of literature between 1990 and 2016 was completed to define school connectedness and identified four factors: attending, belonging, engaging, and flow. The review of the published literature from 1990 to 2016 that related to the four factors was undertaken to define each of these terms and their relevance to school connectedness.

Subsequently, based on the four factors, a sequential, four-level model of school connectedness was proposed. The model suggests a progression from minimal connection to a deep level of acculturation and shared meaning relevant for adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age. It is argued that the four factors form the foundation for engagement and suggests the possibility of an experience of flow as a result of a student's connectedness with school. The literature on which the model is based draws together social, emotional, behavioural, and cognitive terms central to learning. The purpose of the review is to move beyond individual factors to propose an explanation for the sequence of graduated connection. Practically, the model provides a template for establishing the student's current experience of school to facilitate interventions to optimise connectedness with school.

‘School connectedness’ is one of a number of terms used to describe a young person's relationship to school. With school being a compulsory feature of most young people's lives, the nature of this relationship can be highly influential in terms of the quality of their overall school experience. Young people experiencing low connectedness are more likely to withdraw from school and experience the parlous outcomes that often follow. This study used a mixed methods approach to explore the meanings of being connected with school, how this process is understood by students and staff, and how it is shaped by school and individual factors. The study was conducted at a secondary college in outer metropolitan Melbourne. Data collection involved a student questionnaire, student and staff focus groups, and student diaries. Findings indicate that that year level, cigarette use, and involvement in the choice of school were associated with significant differences in connectedness scores. Qualitative data revealed that students experience their connection to school through the relational, activity-based, and academic opportunities available to them in the school setting. It is argued that the findings from this study could be used to frame effective risk reduction or protection-enhancing interventions in schools.

The benefits of belonging and feeling connected to school for adolescent mental health and wellbeing are well documented, but how belonging is fostered is less understood. The present article puts forward a new conceptual framework of school belonging based on Bronfenbrenner's (1979) sociological model of human development, using evidence from a range of previous peer-reviewed studies to better understand the factors that occur across five levels that affect a students’ sense of school belonging (i.e., the individual level, the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem). The conceptual framework is used to present a range of evidence-based school belonging strategies (some with examples) that schools can use to enhance student belonging. This article makes an original contribution to the field of psychological and educational research by presenting a socio-ecological framework to explore the themes that influence school belonging within a secondary school system. It broadens the frame of reference of school belonging beyond the individual student to consider features of the broader school system and environment.

Families and schools are important environments that contribute to the resilience and positive development of preadolescent children. Sense of mastery, including its two central factors of optimism and self-efficacy, forms an important component of resilience during preadolescence (Prince-Embury, 2007). This study examined the interrelationships between family functioning, school connectedness, and sense of mastery in 75 children (46 girls and 29 boys) from a government school in Melbourne, Australia. Data was gathered from students aged 10 to 12 years through three self-report questionnaires. Negative perceptions of family functioning were significantly associated with the resilience factors of low sense of mastery, optimism, and self-efficacy. Higher school connectedness was significantly associated with greater sense of mastery, optimism, and self-efficacy. Additional evaluation revealed school connectedness to partially mediate the relationship between family functioning and sense of mastery. School connectedness appears to be a protective factor against the negative influence of poor family functioning. Findings highlight the important role of school connectedness in preadolescent resilience, as measured in terms of mastery, and suggest that interventions directed to enhance school connectedness are of value, particularly for children from poorly functioning families.

The extent to which students feel accepted, valued, respected and included in the school has recently surfaced as one of the most important predictors of adolescent mental health (particularly depressive symptoms). The school environment is an established predictor of school connectedness, but we set out to examine whether parental attachment predicts both adolescents' perception of the school environment and school connectedness. A study of 171 high school students from years 8 to 12 showed that parent attachment strongly predicted both. We also confirmed that the relationship between parent attachment and school connectedness is not a direct one but that parent attachment influences individual differences in the way adolescents perceive the school environment, which in turn influences school connectedness. This finding shows how multiple systems might be interlinked in influencing wellbeing in adolescents, and confirms the importance of intervening at the double level of both the family and the school system.