The relations between students' sense of school belonging, perceptions of school kindness and character strength of kindness

Chi Kin John LEE, Jing HUANG*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This study explored the associations between secondary school students' sense of school belonging, their perceptions of school kindness, and character strength of kindness, and examined possible differences in these constructs across gender groups. The study, which included 1973 Hong Kong secondary school students, revealed that students' sense of school belonging was positively correlated with their perceptions of school kindness at the school and student levels (0.021 and 0.185, respectively). Furthermore, students' sense of school belonging was positively linked to character strength of kindness at the student level, although this relationship was found to be non-significant at the school level. At both levels of analysis, the positive relationships between students' perceptions of school kindness and character strength of kindness were significant. In addition, girls reported higher levels of character strength of kindness than boys. The findings of this study provide a better understanding of the relationships between sense of school belonging, school kindness, and character strength of kindness. Implications for research are also discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)95-108
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of School Psychology
Volume84
Early online date20 Jan 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Society for the Study of School Psychology

Keywords

  • Character strength of kindness
  • School climate
  • School kindness
  • Sense of school belonging

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