School connectedness as a protective factor against childhood exposure to violence and social deprivation: A longitudinal study of adaptive and maladaptive outcomes

Abstract

School connectedness, a construct indexing supportive school relationships, has been posited to promote resilience to environmental adversity. Consistent with prominent calls in the field, we examined the protective nature of school connectedness against two dimensions of early adversity that index multiple levels of environmental exposure (violence exposure, social deprivation) when predicting both positive and negative outcomes in longitudinal data from 3,246 youth in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (48% female, 49% African American). Child and adolescent school connectedness were promotive, even when accounting for the detrimental effects of early adversity. Additionally, childhood school connectedness had a protective but reactive association with social deprivation, but not violence exposure, when predicting externalizing symptoms and positive function. Specifically, school connectedness was protective against the negative effects of social deprivation, but the effect diminished as social deprivation became more extreme. These results suggest that social relationships at school may compensate for low levels of social support in the home and neighborhood. Our results highlight the important role that the school environment can play for youth who have been exposed to adversity in other areas of their lives and suggest specific groups that may especially benefit from interventions that boost school connectedness.

Keywords: early adversity; latent variable modeling; longitudinal; resilience; school connectedness.

Figure 1:

Hypothetical plots representing the different definitions of protective processes. Adapted from Luthar et al., 2000. All data and associations represented are for example purposes only and are not based on real data.

Figure 2:

Conceptual figure of the main effects and moderation models.

Figure 3:

Diagram of the main effects model including school connectedness. Model controlled for average income-to-needs ratio, race-ethnicity, and sex and was clustered by city at birth. Path estimates shown are StandardYX estimates. To make this figure more readable, only paths significant at p<0.05 are shown, but all were modeled. P-values of all paths are p<0.01 except where reported otherwise. Correlations between all outcome latent variables are all significant at p<0.01.

Figure 4:

Diagram of the latent variable moderation model showing that school connectedness at age 9 moderates the association between social deprivation (ages 3, 5, 9) and externalizing symptoms (ages 9). Model controlled for average income-to-needs ratio, race-ethnicity, and sex. Note: Path estimates shown are StandardYX estimates. To make this figure more readable, only paths significant at p<0.05 are shown. All paths, including all 4 interaction paths, are retained in the model even though they are not shown. Including age 15 school connectedness and symptoms of psychopathology does not change the results of this model.

Figure 5:

Plot illustrating the interaction between childhood social deprivation (ages 3, 5, 9) and school connectedness at age 9 in predicting childhood externalizing symptoms (age 9). For ease of interpretation, all variables have been centered and z-scored so that the mean is 0 and the standard deviation (SD) is 1. The dashed line represents mean levels of social deprivation. School connectedness has been plotted at mean and +/− 1 SD. For each level of school connectedness, the 95% confidence interval is shown. Rug plots depict individual data points for social deprivation and externalizing symptoms on the x and y axis, respectively. An evaluation of Johnson-Neyman intervals shows that, in this sample, the interaction was significant until social deprivation was very high (+3.02 SD) and when school connectedness was greater than −1.80 SD. This suggests that school connectedness at age 9 also had a protective but reactive association with social deprivation when predicting externalizing symptoms at age 9, meaning that school connectedness was protective against social deprivation but that the protective effects diminished when social deprivation was extreme. Additionally, when school connectedness at age 9 was low (-1.80 SD), it was not protective against social deprivation. The range of school connectedness at age 9 in this sample was [-3.31, 1.59] and the range of social deprivation values was [-2.77, 7.54].

Figure 6:

Diagram of the latent variable moderation model showing that school connectedness at age 9 moderates the association between social deprivation (ages 3, 5, 9) and positive adolescent function (age 15). Model controlled for average income-to-needs ratio, race-ethnicity, and sex. Note: Path estimates shown are StandardYX estimates. To make this figure more readable, only paths significant at p<0.05 are shown. All paths, including all both interaction paths, are retained in the model even though they are not shown. Including age 15 school connectedness does not change the results of this model.

Figure 7:

Plot illustrating the interaction between childhood social deprivation (ages 3, 5, 9) and school connectedness at age 9 in predicting adolescent positive function (age 15). For ease of interpretation, all variables have been centered and z-scored so that the mean is 0 and the standard deviation (SD) is 1. The dashed line represents mean levels of social deprivation. School connectedness has been plotted at mean and +/− 1 SD. For each level of school connectedness, the 95% confidence interval is shown. Rug plots depict individual data points for social deprivation and positive function on the x and y axis, respectively. An evaluation of Johnson-Neyman intervals shows that, in this sample, the interaction was significant until social deprivation was very high (+2.77) and when school connectedness was greater than −1.27. This suggests that school connectedness at age 9 had a protective but reactive association with social deprivation when predicting positive adolescent function, meaning that school connectedness was protective against social deprivation but that the protective effects diminished when social deprivation was extreme. Additionally, when school connectedness at age 9 was low (-1.27 SD), it was not protective against social deprivation. The range of school connectedness at age 9 in this sample was [-3.26, 1.46] and the range of social deprivation values was [-2.77, 7.54].