This study examines school belonging and psychosocial adjustment among a sample of 76 Somali adolescents resettled in the United States. A greater sense of school belonging was associated with lower depression and higher self-efficacy, regardless of the level of past exposure to adversities. Notably, more than one-quarter of the variation in self-efficacy was explained uniquely by a sense of school belonging. School belonging was not significantly associated with posttraumatic stress symptom severity and did not moderate the effect of exposure to adversities on psychological adjustment. These results suggest that investigating ways of improving school experiences would be particularly useful in the effort towards continued development of school-based mental health programs for young refugees.(Description from source)
