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Ethnic-racial identity, relatedness, and school belonging for adolescent New Zealanders: does student gender make a difference?

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Abstract

Attitudes toward ethnic and racial identity have been linked to both wellbeing and maladaptive outcomes that affect belonging at school. Further, relatedness (or connectedness) as an indicator of school belonging has been positively associated with adaptive forms of motivation, acceptance of school, protection against risk factors, and scholastic success. Feelings of school belonging have varied among individuals from different ethnic-racial group and genders. In the current study, we employed cluster analysis to investigate how New Zealand Adolescents’ ethnic-racial attitudinal profiles were associated with school relatedness for clusters overall, and among and within clusters by student gender. Differences were found for school belonging among the ethnic-racial cluster overall, with a notable advantage indicated for Multiculturalists (those accepting a diversity of cultural oeuvres). Notably, the adaptive role of identifying with at least one ethnic-racial identity and optimally, embracing other cultural outlooks too, was evidenced to enhance school belonging. Conversely, at least in the New Zealand context, eschewing ethnic-racial identity placed participants at risk of disengaging with school. In terms of within-cluster gender difference, in the Low Race Salience cluster (identified as maladaptive), males demonstrated a markedly lower sense of school belonging than females. Such findings have implications for teaching and learning, and future research to implement interventions enhancing school belonging.

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  1. School of Learning, Development and Professional Practice, Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92601, Auckland, 1150, New Zealand

    Penelope W. St J. Watson, Mohamed Alansari & Christine M. Rubie-Davies

  2. Graduate School of Education, Berkeley Way West Building (BWW), University of California, Berkeley, 2121 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA, 94720-1670, USA

    Frank C. Worrell

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Watson, P.W.S.J., Alansari, M., Worrell, F.C. et al. Ethnic-racial identity, relatedness, and school belonging for adolescent New Zealanders: does student gender make a difference?. Soc Psychol Educ 23, 979–1002 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-020-09563-1

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