Strengthening School Connectedness to Increase Student Success
May 2024 EdResearch for Action brief exploring evidence on strategies to build a sense of school connectedness and engagement among all students.
Why is School Connectedness So Important?
This short post from 2018 summarizes what the authors found in their systematic research review on school connectedness, which aimed to define school connectedness and identify the relationship of four factors (attending, belonging, engaging, and flow) to connectedness. The blog post clearly lays out what looks connectedness looks like, and offers guidance for schools to encourage it, and the literature review takes a deeper, more theoretical approach towards the development of a model of school connectedness.
School Connectedness Helps Students Thrive (CDC.gov)
The CDC shares why connectedness is important and the benefits of promoting connectedness in our schools. The website includes specific actions schools can take to build connectedness, the effects of school connectedness, and additional resources to decrease risky behaviors through connectedness, including from the CDC’s What Works in Schools. See also the March 2009 CDC report, School connectedness: Strategies for increasing protective factors among youth, which includes detailed examples of six strategies to promote school connectedness:
Stories from the Field: Building Strong Relationships (Transforming Education)
Why do teacher-student relationships matter? How can we foster a sense of belonging that allows students to feel like they truly belong in the classroom? This brief from Transforming Education is part of a series on fostering strong relationships, and offers strategies for developing and sustaining strong relationships between teachers and students.
A Call to Connection: Rediscovering the Transformative Power of Relationships (The Einhorn Collaborative)
A Call to Connection is a primer intended to spark conversation and inspire action in the many different settings and roles we inhabit. It does not put forward a prescriptive blueprint, but rather a set of accessible and adaptable ideas for re-centering our culture on connection. With reflection prompts and vignettes throughout, the primer is a powerful tool for igniting a shared understanding and collective consciousness that opens us up to the possibilities for connection around us.
Centering School Connectedness
As featured in NASBE's The State Education Standard - Fostering school connectedness is an effective, universal prevention measure that affects many important student outcomes. Students who are connected to school get better grades, attend more often, have fewer behavioral challenges, graduate from high school, and go to college at higher rates than their disconnected peers.
What Works: School Connectedness
California Safe and Supportive Schools brief summarizes evidence on the importance of school connectedness, with practical tips for what teachers and adults can do right now, as well as universal and targeted support approaches