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Teachers’ and Students’ Beliefs about Student Belonging in One Middle School

This study took place at a newly formed charter school serving 150 students in a large metropolitan city in the southwest. Students were mostly Hispanic (98%), and all were eligible for free or reduced‐price lunch. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected in interviews with 45 sixth‐ (n = 28), seventh‐ (n = 10), and eighth‐ (n = 7) grade students. I used a version of Goodenow’s Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale (which I called the PSSM2) to measure students’ sense of belonging at the school. Interviews also included open‐ended response opportunities for students to define belonging in their own language. Students’ responses were compared with 8 teachers’ ratings of students in terms of their social standing relative to other students. Students estimated the grades they received on their most recent report card. Results suggested that teachers’ ratings of students’ social hierarchy and students’ feelings of belongingness were not related and that students varied in the value they placed on student‐student and student‐teacher relationships in their definitions of belongingness. There was no relation between students’ PSSM2 scores and their estimates of their grades. Teachers’ ratings of how males fit in with their peers were significantly related to males’ grade estimates but not to females’. Study implications and suggestions for future research on student belonging are discussed.