Measuring and Predicting School Belonging Among Neurodiverse Students

Schools provide important contexts in which children can find a sense of belonging to a community. School belonging describes the extent to which students feel they are accepted and valued in their school communities and is associated with many positive psychological, social, and academic outcomes. Research suggests that self-reported school belonging is closely related to students’ perceptions of school climate. Although school belonging and school climate have been widely researched across broad samples of students in K-12 schools, the literature on these topics among neurodiverse students remains scant. Little information is available to understand these students’ perceptions of school belonging and the factors that influence these perceptions. Further, a review of the literature revealed that commonly used measures of school belonging have not been validated for use with neurodiverse students. This research study sought to understand the perceptions of school belonging, examine the predictors of positive school belonging, and investigate the psychometric properties of school belonging survey measures among neurodiverse students in middle school and high school settings. Results supported the measurement invariance of the Simple School Belonging Scale (Whiting et al., 2018) and the School Connectedness subscale of the Georgia School Climate Survey (La Salle et al., 2016) among neurodiverse students. While findings did not result in differences in school belonging or school climate perceptions between neurodiverse and neurotypical students after considering multiple comparison corrections, future research may investigate whether students with specific neurotypes (i.e., autism, ADHD, or co-diagnosed ADHD and autism) experience peer social support and school connectedness differently. Results suggested that several factors may predict school belonging perceptions among neurodiverse students, including peer social support, school safety, a well-maintained physical environment, equitable practices for order and discipline, and the level of schooling (i.e., high school vs. middle school). Finally, results supported the positive impact of inclusive educational practices on the school climate perceptions of all students, not just neurodiverse students.