The necessity for belonging constitutes a fundamental human drive and is essential for optimal human functioning (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Belongingness represents a core human experience, integral to individual identity and emotional health, and is defined by the perception of acceptance and inclusion within a group or community. Recent research highlights the role of belonging in addressing inequity and injustice within the educational system (Parker, Marsh, Jerrim, Guo, & Dicke, 2021). This underscores the critical impact that a sense of belonging has on creating a fair and supportive educational environment for all students. For students, the sense of belonging often starts at home, within the family, and continues in school, where they feel part of the school community. Recent cycles of the IEA International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) (Schulz, Ainley, et al., 2023; Schulz, Ainley, et al., 2018) emphasize the importance of students' sense of belonging in citizenship education. IEA ICCS ICCS results highlight factors such as an open classroom climate, participation in civic activities both inside and outside school, and understanding of diversity as an important for creating and improving sense of belonging and identity. During school time of their life students learn to act, behave, and create relationships aligned with their values and sense of belonging in a relatively safe environment together with their teachers and schoolmates. Another survey (OECD, 2017) mentions that students who have a sense of belonging perform better academically and are more motivated to learn. Academic achievements in school are a crucial factor for a successful future, offering more opportunities to pursue higher education, secure better jobs, choose a comfortable lifestyle, and attain a higher socioeconomic status (SES). 

Nowadays, the sense of belonging plays a vital role in identity creation and sharing common values with others of similar thinking, contributing to building a communal space for coexistence in civic society. Several levels of identity can be identified - individual, national, international, and global. European integration has fostered a sense of collective European identity; this identity coexists and sometimes competes with the strong national identities of European Union member states (Wiener, Börzel, & Risse, 2019). The balance and interaction between these identities vary greatly among individuals and countries, influenced by historical, cultural, and political factors. Given the challenges of immigration, inclusion, and integration, there have been threats to collective identity in the European Union in recent decades. In this context, positive attitudes towards belonging might not be universally consistent and need to be examined to understand how to synergize the sense of belonging at both national and European levels while maintaining a unified European identity. Therefore, the aim of the study is to determine the factors influencing students' sense of belonging to Europe, first within the national context, and then to compare whether these factors differ among the European Union countries. The survey seeks what are the common factors influencing students' sense of belonging among the European Union countries? 

In this research, we utilized the dataset obtained from the IEA ICCS 2022 student survey, which provided information on students' levels of civic knowledge and their attitudes toward various social and political issues, including their beliefs about threats to democracy, views on various forms of equality, and their expected future activities as responsible members of society. To incorporate the school-related factors in the study, we also used a survey of school principals. This additional survey furnished information on school size, urbanity, the school's surrounding environment, and the principal's perspective on internal processes within the school. The primary focus of our study is on students' attitudes toward Europe, for which we employed the European module survey. The core theme of our investigation revolves around students' sense of belonging and identification with Europe. Within the ICCS 2022 European module survey dataset, the variable E_EUIDENT, interpreted as a student's sense of European identity, was already included. To elucidate the variations in students' attitudes towards Europe and their perceived place within it, we considered various aspects related to Europe. These aspects encompassed students' positive or negative attitudes toward the European Union (E_EUATNOG and E_EUATPOS), their endorsement of freedom of movement within Europe (E_FREEMOVE), expectations for their individual futures (E_INDFUT), and other scales gauging their perspectives on various issues within Europe. A comparative analysis was conducted among European Union countries participating in the ICCS 2022 cycle study. Initially, descriptive statistical analyses were performed to identify surface-level differences among the countries of interest. At first, in order to estimate the causal effects on the European identity the Bayesian additive regression tree (BART) algorithm (Cabras, Tena Horrillo, 2015) was used. Then by integrating these results with literature-based insights, we formulated a theoretical model, examining its consistency with the data through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Subsequently, model invariance was tested across the respective countries. All analyses were conducted using the R programming language (R Core Team, 2022, version 4.2.2), employing the lavaan (Rosseel, 2012) , survey (Lumley, 2023) packages, BayesTree (Chipman, McCulloch, 2024)

It is known (reference) that students' sense of belonging is a multidimensional construct, and one of its facets is to associate oneself as a European citizen. The results of this study will help identify what is associated with this dimension of belonging. The findings may provide suggestions on how to promote, for example, students' expected engagement in future European elections. It will also help understand to what extent the next generation of voters could be pro or anti-European, which could, to some extent, allow predicting scenarios like Brexit (in UK 2020) in Latvia or in other countries included in the study.

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