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The period of early adolescence is characterized by dramatic changes, simultaneously affecting physiological, psychological, social, and cognitive development. The physical transition from elementary to middle school can exacerbate the stress and adversity experienced during this critical life stage. Middle school students often struggle to find social and emotional support, and many students experience a decreased sense of belonging in school, diverting students from promising academic and career trajectories. Drawing on psychological insights for promoting belonging, we fielded a brief intervention designed to help students reappraise concerns about fitting in at the start of middle school as both temporary and normal. We conducted a district-wide double-blind experimental study of this approach with middle school students (n = 1,304). Compared with the control condition activities, the intervention reduced sixth-grade disciplinary incidents across the district by 34%, increased attendance by 12%, and reduced the number of failing grades by 18%. Differences in benefits across demographic groups were not statistically significant, but some impacts were descriptively larger for historically underserved minority students and boys. A mediational analysis suggested 80% of long-term intervention effects on students’ grade point averages were accounted for by changes in students’ attitudes and behaviors. These results demonstrate the long-term benefits of psychologically reappraising stressful experiences during critical transitions and the psychological and behavioral mechanisms that support them. Furthermore, this brief intervention is a highly cost-effective and scalable approach that schools may use to help address the troubling decline in positive attitudes and academic outcomes typically accompanying adolescence and the middle school transition.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether personal, social and organizational level resources can buffer against the negative effects of perceived loneliness on stress and exhaustion. The data was collected from Finnish university employees (n = 1463) in autumn 2020 via an electronic survey. Of the respondents, about 78% were working remotely, and 64% were female. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to analyze the main and moderating (i.e., buffering) effects. The results indicated that perceived loneliness was directly and positively associated with stress and exhaustion. Further, as hypothesized, personal resilience moderated the relationship between loneliness and stress and exhaustion, and organizational support moderated the relationship between loneliness and stress. Unexpectedly, organizational support did not moderate the loneliness–exhaustion relationship. Moreover, a sense of social belonging was not associated with stress and exhaustion, nor did it moderate loneliness and well-being relationships. The results demonstrate the importance of personal resilience and organizational support in enhancing well-being in organizations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future research directions and practical ways to promote resilience and to increase organizational support are discussed.

Using data from the 2009 Canadian General Social Survey-Victimization main file, this study assessed the association between intimate partner violence (IPV) victims’ socio-demographic characteristics, violence characteristics, sense of social belonging, and help seeking behaviors. In a nationally representative study, we conducted hierarchical binary logistic regression to evaluate the relationship between IPV victims’ (n = 900; 385 males and 515 females) sense of social belonging and their engagement with seeking help from informal (family members, friends/neighbors, co-workers) and formal (counsellor/psychologist, doctor/nurse, lawyer, police) sources of support after controlling for victim socio-demographic characteristics and severity of violence experienced. We also sought to assess whether male and female victims of IPV differed in their solicitation of help from both informal sources and formal service providers. As hypothesized, males were significantly less likely than females to seek help from all sources. In partial support of our hypotheses, social belonging was significantly associated with an increased probability of seeking support from friends or neighbors in the regression analysis; however it was not associated with seeking help from any other source. Implications suggest that facilitating strategies for bringing together community members in every day contexts (not solely in the aftermath of violence) may be salient to enhancing survivors’ sense of belonging and increasing the likelihood that they will solicit help if needed. Findings also suggest the need for further gender based analysis of the help seeking experiences of male and female survivors to address potential gender specific barriers to help seeking.

Belonging is important for student motivation, retention and engagement. However, belonging is difficult to foster in the online environment, and the pandemic necessitating a shift to online learning has meant that many senior students may not feel that they belong at university. Drawing on qualitative data obtained via two online questionnaires, this paper conceptualises the impact of online learning on students’ sense of belonging by focusing on the interconnected nature of spatial, academic and social belonging, which serves to foster an overall sense of personal belonging. The paper also considers what the role of academic literacy modules is in this situation, as they are uniquely situated to foster a sense of belonging in students. A model for conceptualising the interconnected nature of belonging is also presented.

Belonging is important for student motivation, retention and engagement. However, belonging is difficult to foster in the online environment, and the pandemic necessitating a shift to online learning has meant that many senior students may not feel that they belong at university. Drawing on qualitative data obtained via two online questionnaires, this paper conceptualises the impact of online learning on students’ sense of belonging by focusing on the interconnected nature of spatial, academic and social belonging, which serves to foster an overall sense of personal belonging. The paper also considers what the role of academic literacy modules is in this situation, as they are uniquely situated to foster a sense of belonging in students. A model for conceptualising the interconnected nature of belonging is also presented.

The social-belonging intervention is a wise psychological intervention designed to convey the message that worries and doubts about belonging during transition into higher education are common to all first-year students and tend to dissipate with time. The aim of this first systematic review on the social-belonging intervention was to investigate whether it can reduce achievement gaps in postsecondary education. Moreover, research questions about other outcomes possibly affected by this intervention and factors that may affect its efficacy were investigated. The protocol of this systematic review was registered with INPLASY. Four databases were searched for randomised control trials published in peer-reviewed journals testing the intervention in higher education. In total, 17 articles, which included a total of 21 studies, satisfied the inclusion and exclusion criteria as well as the quality assessment and were therefore included in this review. The reviewed research suggests that the intervention can narrow achievement gaps in higher education, as well as affect sense of belonging, academic fit, perception of adversities, use of campus support and the mental and physical health of disadvantaged students. These findings and their limitations, future research directions and recommendations are discussed in the final section.

College Belonging reveals how colleges' and universities' efforts to foster a sense of belonging in their students are misguided. Colleges bombard new students with the message to \"get out there!\" and \"find your place\" by joining student organizations, sports teams, clubs and the like. Nunn shows that this reflects a flawed understanding of what belonging is and how it works. Drawing on the sociological theories of Emile Durkheim, College Belonging shows that belonging is something that members of a community offer to each other. It is something that must be given, like a gift. Individuals cannot simply walk up to a group or community and demand belonging. That's not how it works. The group must extend a sense of belonging to each and every member. It happens by making a person feel welcome, to feel that their presence matters to the group, that they would be missed if they were gone. This critical insight helps us understand why colleges' push for students simply to \"get out there!\" does not always work. 

This study explored the relationship between technology acceptance and learning satisfaction in the context of blended learning, with a particular focus on the mediating effects of online behaviors, emotional experience, social belonging, and higher-order thinking. A total of 110 Chinese university students participated in this study and completed a questionnaire at the end of 11 weeks of blended learning. The results demonstrate that technology acceptance directly and indirectly relates to blended learning satisfaction. The mediation analysis further revealed two significant mediating pathways from technology acceptance to blended learning satisfaction: one through higher-order thinking, and the other through serial mediation of emotional experience, social belonging, and higher-order thinking. Moreover, there was no significant mediating effect of online learning behaviors on blended learning satisfaction. Based on these results, we have proposed practical implications for improving blended learning practice to promote learner satisfaction. These results contribute to our understanding of blended learning as an integrated construct under the triadic interplay of technical environment, learning behaviors, and individual perceptions.

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on life satisfaction has been a topic of worldwide research, mostly indicating a drop in individual’s life satisfaction with some differences between subgroups. However, literature on related mechanisms is scarce. This study examines whether the sense of social belonging is a mechanism that explains pandemic-related changes in life satisfaction across different age groups. Using a rich longitudinal data set of the adult cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study and employing fixed effects panel regression models, we show that the COVID-19 pandemic is, on average, negatively associated with individual life satisfaction and social belonging. Yet, mediation and sensitivity analysis questions the general importance of social belonging as a relevant mechanism irrespective of individuals’ age. The results also suggest that the negative effects of the pandemic on social belonging were indeed significant for individuals with average or high pre-pandemic social belonging, while individuals with low pre-pandemic social belonging experienced an increase in their sense of social belonging. This leads to an expanded discussion of which groups of people are most affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and what other mechanisms can be hypothesized to explain this negative impact on people's life satisfaction.

Loneliness, social isolation, and lack of social belonging are factors that may negatively impact the mental health and well-being of PhD candidates. This study aims to advance understanding of the function of social activities in their role as interventions that foster social belonging and well-being among PhD candidates. After collecting observational data from the well-being interventions, 10 PhD candidates were interviewed to explore how they perceived their participation in social activities on campus and how it affected their sense of social belonging. Our results show that participating in social activities was beneficial for PhD candidates on both a personal and professional level, potentially leading to an increased sense of community and well-being, along with increased social interaction, networking, and collaboration. PhD candidates' well-being was found to be linked to social capital in the forms of social belonging and social support. Organizing social activities tailored to PhD candidates' needs may help increase their sense of well-being by generating social capital, which could benefit PhD candida nationally and worldwide.