Tracking Intersectional Inequalities in School Belonging Using PIRLS, TIMSS, and PISA Data

Author(s):

Andrés Strello(submitting)Kristine Kampmane(presenting)Andrejs Geske Antra Ozola

Conference:

ECER 2026

Network:

09. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement

Format:

Symposium Paper

Session Information

09 SES 08 A, Innovations, Challenges, and Insights from International Large-Scale Assessments (Part 3): Inequality and Segregation Patterns Across Countries

Symposium

Time:

2026-08-19

17:15-18:45

Room:

K103 | Linna building | 1 Fl.

Chair:

Erika Majoros

Discussant:

Andrés Strello

Contribution

As socio-emotional competencies gain prominence, students’ sense of school belonging (SSB) has attracted increasing attention (Aldrich et al., 2025). SSB refers to feeling accepted, respected, included, supported, and emotionally connected at school (Allen et al., 2017). In the international assessments the OECD and IEA measure a narrower form of SSB focused on social inclusion and identification with school. Stronger SSB is linked to better psychological outcomes, well-being, and achievement (Allen et al., 2018; Mullis et al., 2020; OECD, 2023). Using TIMSS 2023, Aldrich et al. (2025) found SES was only weakly related to school climate health (including SSB), whereas PISA trend analyses show belonging has declined most among lower-SES students (Högberg et al., 2021). This research builds on an intersectional framework (Codiroli McMaster & Cook, 2019) by examining three intercategorical groupings – SES, immigrant background, and gender –within post-Soviet educational systems in the EU (Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania) to analyze their relationships with sense of school belonging. The research questions are: 1) How are student-level factors such as “Students Like ” and “Student Bullying” associated with students’ SSB? 2) Do these associations differ across intersectional groups defined by SES (low vs. high), gender (girls vs. boys), and immigrant background (language spoken at home)? 3) Do intersectional SSB gaps vary across education systems and schooling stages? Using descriptive statistics and linear regression, this study analyzes data from OECD PISA 2022, IEA PIRLS 2021, and IEA TIMSS 2023. Within each country and study samples were divided into four equal SES quartiles. Intersectional groups were then constructed by combining each SES level with students’ gender and the language spoken at home. Comparisons focused on four groups within low SES and four groups within high SES. Preliminary TIMSS analyses indicate that low-SES students who do not speak the test language at home report lower SSB than higher-SES peers and low-SES students who do speak the test language at home. Boys report lower SSB than girls, and the gap between high-SES boys and low-SES boys is the largest among the intersectional groups. Across strata, predictors explain a moderate-to-large share of variance in SSB (R² = 0.32–0.61), with the best model fit observed for the boys’ group. Overall, these results suggest that associations with SSB vary across intersectional groups.

References

Aldrich, C. E. A., Reynolds, K. A., Leng, D., & von Davier, M. (2025). School climate health: Multidimensional profiles of school environments in TIMSS 2023. TIMSS & PIRLS Study Center Allen, K., Kern, M. L., Vella-Brodrick, D., Hattie, J., & Waters, L. (2018). What schools need to know about fostering school belonging: A meta-analysis. Educational psychology review, 30(1), 1-34. Allen, K., Vella-Brodrick, D., & Waters, L. (2017). School belonging and the role of social and emotional competencies in fostering an adolescent’s sense of connectedness to their school. In E. Frydenberg, A.J. Martin and R.J. Collie (eds.), Social and Emotional Learning in Australia and the Asia-Pacific (pp. 83-99). Springer Codiroli Mcmaster, N., & Cook, R. (2019). The contribution of intersectionality to quantitative research into educa-tional inequalities. Review of Education, 7(2), 271-292 Högberg, B., Petersen, S., Strandh, M., & Johansson, K. (2021). Determinants of declining school belonging 2000–2018: The case of Sweden. Social Indicators Research, 157(2), 783-802 Mullis, I. V. S., Martin, M. O., Foy, P., Kelly, D. L., & Fishbein, B. (2020). TIMSS 2019 International Results in Mathematics and Science. TIMSS & PIRLS Study Center OECD (2023), PISA 2022 Results (Volume II): Learning During – and From – Disruption. OECD Publishing

Author Information

Andrés Strello (submitting)

IEA Hamburg

Hamburg

Kristine Kampmane (presenting)

University of Latvia

Educational research institute

Riga

Andrejs Geske

University of Latvia

Antra Ozola

University of Latvia

Riga

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