According to Juvonen (2006), a sense of belonging or connectedness has had many demonstrated long-term benefits. For instance, a study found that participation in extracurricular activities in middle-school helped increased school retention, especially for those students at risk for dropping out before high school (Mahoney, 2000). A good student-teacher relationship in middle school was predictive of high-school engagement and motivation (Murdock, Anderman, & Hodge, 2000).
Conversely, if a student repeated a grade in middle-school then there was an increase in the probability of them dropping out and not graduating high-school (Alexander, Entwisle, & Kabbani, 2001). Thus, a lack of belonging could have far-reaching negative effects.
Reis, Collins, and Berscheid (2000) also mention several important facts that could help us foster favorable environments in middle-school so as to increase high-school graduation rates. Firstly, they say that young children may be dependent on parents or other caregivers, but as they reach adolescence, their connections with peers increase. Secondly, they say that having friends at any age-group is important as they lead to ‘security, self-worth, well-being, and successful coping during life transitions’(p 862). Thirdly, since in most middle-schools students shuttle from different classrooms, they would come across many different teachers and groups of peers which ‘necessitates special attention to personal qualities and skill in social understanding’(p 862).
Keeping all of these in mind, I feel *teacher facilitated student-interest clubs* in middle schools would be very important to have. These student clubs wouldn’t be transient like the classroom shuttling, would be extracurricular, and would have teachers as mentors. All three features independently are good for high-school retention, so hopefully together would be even better.
I really like the way you brought three factors that appear to have positive influence together to suggest an intervention. I particularly like the idea of interest clubs as a way to provide some stability for kids in terms of who they interact with. My worry with a club, however, is the fact that fewer children from working-class versus upper-class backgrounds tend to participate in extracurriculars (Snellman et al., 2015). Several of our classmates (including me) suggested consistent homerooms *during the school day* as a way to lessen transience. I wonder if those groups could be organized by interest and include some activities that are typically considered extracurricular, in order to move toward equitable participation.
Snellman, K., Silva, J. M., Frederick, C. B., & Putnam, R. D. (2015). The engagement gap: Social mobility and extracurricular participation among American youth. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 657(1), 194-207.
Hi Sukanya – Great post! I made a similar connection in my post. I think teachers can actively increase student participation by helping their students engage in extracurricular activities. Although I understand that this is much to ask teachers with already a full plate, I think it could have significant impacts on students’ involvement and persistence. As such, I recommend that teachers take simple measures (i.e. organize a social hour or craft night). Although this makes me question which type of extracurricular involvement (i.e. sports, special interest groups, academic clubs) is more influencial for student engagement? I’ve yet to identify research hat has investigated this question.
Hi Katie,
Thanks for bringing this to my notice. That’s a very important issue to address! I wonder if increasing funding so the extracurriculars are highly inclusive and having teachers (more on this in my reply to Krystal!) be active members to ensure equitable participation would work. I also like your idea of homeroom groups/base groups and how these can be created according to shared interests! I think that would have components of many things that work positively to increase relatedness and belonging.
Hi Krystal,
Yeah, we need to know what kind of extracurricular activities work in favor of students and how much relatedness/value etc students need to have for those activities. I wonder if “teachers in charge” could also be maybe community volunteers and not full-time teachers (in case they have too much on the plate)? I am not entirely familiar with the American education system (yet!) but I know different districts have different public schools and perhaps some community members could feel invested to be a part of school? Then again, we’ll have address what Katie said about socio-economic backgrounds. Funding and finding people to volunteer may be a problem in certain areas and we’d have to actively find solutions to address those.
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