The Relationship of School Belonging and Friends' Values to Academic Motivation Among Urban Adolescent Students

TLDR

Students’ sense of school belonging and friends’ academic values are recognized as important, yet potentially negative, influences on academic motivation, especially among students at risk of dropout. The study investigated how school belonging and friends’ academic values relate to academic motivation among early adolescents. Data were collected from 301 African‑American, White/Anglo, and Hispanic students in two urban junior high schools. School belonging was strongly linked to expectancy of success, valuing schoolwork, general motivation, and effort, with these associations remaining significant after controlling for friends’ values and being stronger for Hispanic students and girls, whereas friends’ academic values showed only weak relationships.

Abstract

Abstract Students' subjective sense of school belonging recently has been identified as a potentially important influence on academic motivation, engagement, and participation, especially among students from groups at risk of school dropout. Students' friends also influence their academic motivation, sometimes negatively. In this study, the relationship among early adolescent students' sense of school belonging, perceptions of their friends' academic values, and academic motivation was investigated among 301 African-American, White/Anglo, and Hispanic students in two urban junior high schools. School belonging was significantly associated with several motivation-related measures—expectancy of success, valuing schoolwork, general school motivation, and self-reported effort. Students' beliefs about their friends' academic values were more weakly related to these outcomes. The correlations between school belonging and the motivation-related measures remained positive and statistically significant even after the effects of friends' academic values were partialled out. School belonging was more highly associated with expectancy for success among Hispanic students than among African-American students, and among girls than among boys.