What do young people say helps or hinders their sense of school belonging and how does teacher involvement in a gratitude diary intervention impact on feelings of gratitude and belonging?

Abstract

The concepts of gratitude and belonging are associated with the field of positive psychology and have been found to correlate with measures of wellbeing. However, whilst there are many quantitative studies correlating sense of school belonging with various outcome measures, there are few studies that seek the views of young people directly about what helps or hinders sense of school belonging. In chapter 2, I describe a systematic review and thematic synthesis of twelve studies that explored children’s own views and experiences, which could then inform school practice. Mixed method and qualitative papers that sought views of young people from 5-19 were eligible for inclusion. I inferred that Being accepted for who you are, Wanting to learn but not always feeling able to, Feeling cared for (or not) and How you connect (or don’t) to school were all important factors in helping or hindering school belonging. Implications for schools, as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.
One intervention that has been linked to increases in school belonging is the use of gratitude diaries. Although results are mixed, with some studies showing no effect of a gratitude diary compared to a neutral events diary, other studies have found evidence to suggest that recording gratitude regularly increases children’s overall level of gratitude, as well as their sense of school belonging (SoSB). Chapter 3 describes an empirical study that sought to add another variable to the study of this topic: the impact of teacher involvement in a gratitude diary intervention, based on literature that suggests teachers have an important role to play in increasing children’s gratitude and SoSB. Children in a large junior school in the south of England were randomly assigned by class to one of four conditions: gratitude diary with teacher involvement, gratitude diary without teacher involvement, events diary with teacher involvement and events diary without teacher involvement. Measures of gratitude and SoSB were taken at baseline, on completion of the intervention and at follow up, and an ANOVA was used to analyse the results. Although there were no significant effects of the diary or teacher conditions over time, there was an interaction between diary and teacher for measure of gratitude, indicating that teacher involvement led to more gratitude in those completing a gratitude diary but less gratitude for those completing an events diary. Teacher involvement also led to improvements in gratitude from the end of the study to follow up for both diary conditions. The strengths and weaknesses of the study are discussed. It is tentatively suggested that teacher involvement may be beneficial for universal gratitude interventions but that further research is needed, including whether gratitude may be more beneficial as a targeted intervention.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Colin Woodcock: orcid.org/0000-0002-9424-8466

ORCID for Catherine Brignell: orcid.org/0000-0001-7768-6272

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