The influence of school sense of community on students' well-being: A multilevel analysis

Previous studies have demonstrated the role of students' school sense of community (i.e., emotional connection and bonds with other students at school and sense of belonging to the school as a community) in predicting well-being (presence of positive feelings and positive functioning in life). Specifically, these studies have found that individual sense of community in the school is associated with well-being. However, individual sense of community in the school does not constitute a school-level characteristic, and the influence of sense of community at the school level on students' well-being was not investigated. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a study investigating the influence of sense of community at the school level on students' well-being, using multilevel analysis. Our sample comprised 1,800 students (age ranged from 11 to 20 years) from public lower and upper secondary schools in Italy. Results showed that higher sense of community scores at the school level were associated with higher well-being scores, while controlling for individual sense of community, gender, and age. These results provide support for a school-level theory of school sense of community (i.e., moving school sense of community theory from the individual to the school level).