Impact of family cohesion and adaptability on students’ sense of school belonging: Chain mediating effects of self-support and self-esteem

We examined the chain mediating role of self-support and self-esteem in the link between family functioning and sense of school belonging among Chinese junior high school students. Students in Grades 1 to 3 (N = 728) completed the Family Cohesion and Adaptability Scale, the Adolescent Students’ Self-Supporting Personality Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale. A mediating effect analysis was used to test the hypotheses. The results were as follows: (a) there were significant positive correlations among family functioning, sense of school belonging, self-esteem, and self-support; (b) self-support mediated the effect of family functioning on sense of school belonging, and self-esteem mediated the effect of self-support on sense of school belonging; and (c) self-support and self-esteem played a significant chain mediating role between family functioning and sense of school belonging, with the mediating effect accounting for 34.48% of the total effect. Thus, family functioning affects students’ sense of school belonging both directly and also indirectly through self-support and self-esteem. To improve students’ sense of belonging at school, educators should focus on the functioning of students’ families, and on the level of students’ self-support and development of self-esteem.