No Child is an Island: A Study of the Effect on Student Sense of Belonging Through Their Participation in a Formal Program of Character Education

Abstract

As more schools consider ways to help students to develop not only academically but also socially and emotionally, school personnel look to formal programs of character education to help address the needs of the whole child. Of these programs of character education, Berkowitz and Bier (2005) posit that effective programs begin by promoting positive social relationships within the school. One measure of the quality of the social relationships in schools is reflected in the level of belonging or connectedness that students feel toward their school and members of the school community. Consequently, the purpose of the present study was to further the investigation of the construct of sense of school belonging and its relationship to formal programs of character education. Eighth-grade students (732) from five middle schools – three character program schools and two non-character program schools – were surveyed measuring sense of school belonging by their responses on the total score of the Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM) scale developed by Goodenow (1993) and on the four sub-scores of the PSSM demonstrated by Ye and Wallace (2013). No significant differences were found for student sense of belonging between character program schools and non-character program schools. However, the study also investigated the effect of structural and perceptual elements of character education programs that were found to positively relate to student sense of school belonging. Students who identified themselves as being part of a character education group in their school reported significantly higher levels of sense of belonging (on the total score of the PSSM and on the PSSM factors of Identification and Participation in School, Perception of Fitting in Among Peers, and Generalized Connection to Teachers) than those students who did not identify as being part of a character education group. In addition, students reported statistically significant higher levels of sense of belonging a) the more they felt accepted by other students in their group, b) the more they felt accepted by their adult group advisor, c) the more they felt able to express opinions in their group, d) the more they felt their group was like a family, and e) the more they felt character education groups made their school a better place. Sense of belonging was also positively related to more frequent opportunities for character education group meetings and to a common school language that emphasized moral character more than performance character.