Peer-reviewed article
Family background and classroom belonging among adolescent students in Finland
Helena Hautala, Hannu Lehti, Johanna Kallio ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines whether family economic situation and parental education affect how much adolescent students in Finland feel they belong in their classroom. Using survey data from over 114,000 students, the researchers found that students from low-income families are more likely to feel they don't belong at school, even though Finland has a very equal education system. Parental education level did not affect classroom belonging. The negative effect of low family income was strongest in junior secondary school and weakest in vocational schools, and was reduced in schools where most students had low incomes.
Key points
- Family's low economic situation predicts higher probability of lack of classroom belonging despite Finland's equal education system
- Neither mother's nor father's educational level was associated with sense of belonging
- Association between low family income and lack of belonging was strongest in comprehensive secondary education
- Association was weakest in upper secondary vocational education
- Low-income students felt less isolated in schools with lower average student economic situations
Limitations
The study is cross-sectional and cannot establish causation. It does not explore the mechanisms through which family economic situation affects sense of belonging, such as peer relationships, bullying, or material deprivation.
Abstract
Abstract We study whether a family’s economic situation and parental educational level are associated with classroom belonging among students in comprehensive secondary, upper secondary general and upper secondary vocational education in Finland. We also study whether there are educational-level differences in this possible association. We use survey data from the Finnish School Health Promotion study from 2017 (N = 114,528). We conduct random effect linear probability models with schools as the second-level grouping variable. The results show that family’s low economic situation predicts a higher probability of lack of sense of classroom belonging in Finland, despite the country having one of the world’s most equal educational systems and comparably low economic inequality. Neither mother’s nor father’s educational level has any association. A family’s low economic situation seems to predict the lack of a sense of belonging most strongly in comprehensive secondary education and most weakly in upper secondary vocational education. Our results slightly support the proposed significance of context-specific hierarchies in determining the association between economic resources and sense of belonging. A family having a poor economic situation is not reflected in the sense of classroom belonging as strongly in schools where students have a low average economic situation compared to those where students have a high average economic situation. We suggest measures, in addition to alleviating economic inequalities, to support the sense of school belonging, especially for low-income students.