Abstract

This review of literature investigated the question: “To what extent does having a sense of connectedness and belonging in school influence the ways in which young people cope with past trauma?” Nearly 20% of 15 year olds around the world report feeling disconnected from school (OECD, 2019). Children with four or more adverse childhood experiences are more prone to experiencing trauma, hardships and an increased risk of feeling disconnected from school (Crouch, et al., 2019). Experiencing childhood trauma can lead to long-term changes to the structural connections within the brain and alter emotional coping mechanisms and fear responses, leading to hypervigilance that can prompt defensive or aggressive behaviours, affecting relationships. Poor coping of trauma can lead to difficulty in communicating needs, risk-taking behaviours and avoidant coping, affecting academic progress and intensifying lack of connectedness and disengagement from school. The quality of peer and teacher relationships plays a strong role in how connected a student feels at school. Bullying, peer aggression, teacher apathy or insensitivity, and punishing exclusionary practices create barriers to feeling a sense of belonging in school. Positive relationships, on the other hand, can protect students from emotional and behavioural issues, encouraging positive coping skills, such as seeking support, practising self-care and discussing feelings with compassionate peers and adults, to form stronger bonds of trust and emotional connection. Schools can improve connectedness-belonging to support positive coping by teaching conflict resolution skills and addressing bullying. Training teachers to better understand the impact of trauma on young people and to teach emotional regulation and communication skills can help professionals to remain calm under stressful interactions, engage in active listening, and show empathy and compassion to make young people feel valued, understood and cared for. Connected students who perceive teachers as mentors rather than disciplinarians are more likely to strengthen their self-esteem – believing they can cope with their trauma, build positive self-identities, set future goals and discover new life opportunities – because they have advocates that believe in them.

Introduction

A sense of belonging is not a luxury – it is a lifeline. Connectedness, the feeling of being valued and integrated into a community (Sulkowski et al., 2012), and belonging, the deeper emotional security of feeling “personally accepted, respected, included and supported in the school social environment” (Goodenow, 1993), are foundational to young people’s ability to cope with past trauma. Various research shows these bonds act as a psychological armour, buffering trauma’s impact by fostering resilience and self-worth (Sulkowski et al., 2012). Without them, trauma can distort identity and make recovery a significant uphill battle.

Thriving in school is especially important for vulnerable youth as it offers protective factors like supportive relationships, consistent routines, and physical and emotional safety. These factors help buffer the negative effects of trauma, challenged backgrounds and promote resilience. According to Social Control Theory (Hirschi, 1969), when young people form strong social bonds to institutions like schools, they are more likely to internalise positive norms and avoid harmful behaviours. A strong sense of school connectedness acts as a stabilising force, encouraging emotional growth and academic success. Protective factors within the school environment, such as trusting teacher-student relationships and peer support, play a crucial role in helping these youth not just survive but to thrive in their academics (Masten, 2001).

Nearly 20% of 15 year olds around the world report feeling disconnected from school (OECD, 2019). A lack of school connectedness can be linked to problems in adolescents like violence, conduct problems, alcohol use, cigarette and marijuana use, and the early onset of sexual activity (Brookmeyer, Fanti & Henrich, 2006; Resnick et al., 1997). This absence of belonging can also be correlated to higher levels of anxiety, depression (Aldridge & McChesney, 2018) and suicidal thoughts or behaviours (Marraccini & Brier, 2017). 

Adolescent populations that tend to be the most affected in terms of feeling a lack of connectedness at school include those with negative family relationship backgrounds, particularly younger people who have experienced physical, emotional or sexual abuse within their family (Noble-Carr et al., 2014). Additionally, other populations that are apt to struggle with low levels of school connectedness include those who struggle with substance use, poor mental health and different sexual identities than their peers, as well as those with social, emotional and learning challenges and disabilities (SEND) (Wilkins et al., 2023).

Youth who have experience of trauma are more vulnerable in a negative school climate and environment. Trauma is something that can endure and remains perpetually reactive in the brain. It not only makes one who is affected behave differently, but it rewires the brain. The neural pathways of the brain can be altered. The brain goes into a survival mode, constantly scanning for a non-existent danger. This can lead to visible external behaviours in response to an increase in anxiety and difficulty calming down. The amygdala, an essential part of the brain that focuses on emotional processing and threat detection, can experience an increase in activity, especially from early-life trauma. This can lead to a higher tendency to develop a more intense response to stress and even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Barberini et al., 2024). As a result, relationships can be affected by making connectedness and belonging more difficult to experience. 

Trauma affects how young people cope. To what extent does having a sense of connectedness or belonging influence how young people cope with past trauma? This research aims to thoroughly investigate how feelings of connectedness and/or belonging in school affect how young people cope with trauma. This paper will be a review of literature summarising and analysing published studies. Measures of connectedness and belonging will be explored concerning trauma as experienced by adolescents and how developing a positive school climate where young people feel connected and valued can improve the coping skills necessary to thrive.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Adolescents who have had multiple adverse childhood experiences, or who have experienced trauma, are at a higher risk of struggling in school, academically, socially, emotionally and behaviourally. They have an increased risk of experiencing a greater number of school suspensions and detentions, all of which contribute to feeling a lack of connectedness and belonging in school. School can be a protective factor for those who don’t feel safe at home and in their community. The following studies explore how understanding adolescent trauma can strengthen knowledge on how facilitating connectedness and belonging in school can help young people to better cope with their adverse circumstances so they can succeed in school.

ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES (ACEs) & TRAUMA

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – traumatic experiences in early childhood – can significantly impact children’s wellbeing. Children with four or more ACEs are more likely to show a lack of engagement in school and are more likely to repeat a grade; specific ACEs like economic hardship can lead to higher school absenteeism and non-engagement (Felitti et al., 1998). Parental incarceration, household substance abuse, exposure to violence and racial or ethnic discrimination can each contribute to negative academic and behavioural outcomes in school (Felitti, et al., 1998). Academic struggles in school due to trauma can lead to negative effects on social development and emotional management, influencing relationships with peers and adults in school (Crouch, et al., 2019).

Trauma radically impacts overall wellbeing and manifests in numerous different ways. Immediate effects include exhaustion, confusion or numbness; more delayed effects include fatigue, sleep problems, nightmares, depression and a diminished sense of hope for the future. In an emotional sense, bearers of trauma often struggle with coping with feelings like anger, fear and shame, and oftentimes experience emotional numbing. They may display behavioural responses like avoidance, self-medication, compulsive actions and in some cases self-harm. Relationships of trauma victims can suffer, as they may have difficulty trusting others. Trauma symptoms often align with other mental disorders, requiring an accurate diagnosis for effective treatment (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, 2014).

Trauma can have various effects on students, but as they build school connectedness and a sense of belonging, it has been shown to crucially reduce these impacts and help many students thrive and recover. When students feel more valued and understood at school, they experience lower levels of mental health problems, substance use and deviant behaviour (Wang and Fredericks, 2014). For instance, adolescents who have strong school connectedness were 45% less likely to report poor mental health and 57% less likely to die by suicide compared to those who do not feel as connected (CDC, 2024). A sense of belonging and connectedness can also help students develop inner strength, giving them more confidence and motivation. Reviewed studies found that schools that implemented a whole-school approach to improving connectedness and belonging were better at minimising at-risk behaviours in youth; connected students were more likely to build positive self-identities, set future goals and discover new life opportunities where they could see themselves in a different context, rather than being defined by their trauma (Chapman et al., 2013).

THE ROLE OF TRAUMA IN NEUROBIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

Due to the simultaneous physical, psychological and social transitions, early adolescence is a developmental period during which vulnerability for externalising behaviour problems, such as aggression and delinquency, rises (Steinberg & Morris, 2001).

Neurobiologically, being forced to contend with childhood trauma can have a vast variety of alterations to the structure of the brain. These alterations typically tend to occur in areas of the brain that are susceptible to conjuring stress, specifically, the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus and amygdala. Chronic fear, due to past trauma, tends to provoke the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which is the body’s stress response mechanism when dealing with a notion of threat. The repeated activation of the HPA axis can lead to changes in managing glucocorticoid levels, including cortisol. Cortisol at elevated levels can lead to toxic effects in younger individuals. On the contrary, HPA downregulation is seen to be a common effect in people who have experienced childhood trauma, which leads to lower average cortisol levels as they develop (Cross et al., 2017).

Furthermore, adolescents inclined to exhibit externalising and aggressive behaviour repeatedly have been shown to have structural differences in their neural networks. Particularly, the connection between the amygdala, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) has been proven to have higher levels of connectivity at the resting condition in youth populations. This leads to increased degrees of hypervigilance and awareness among adolescents and alterations to the neurological networks that cope with emotional management and affairs (Thijssen et al., 2020). Younger people who tend to experience feelings of isolation within their communities have been shown to release higher levels of neuropeptides linked to stress, including glucocorticoids and corticotropin hormones. The elevated levels of these stress-inducing neuropeptides are associated with the higher extent to which isolated adolescents display feelings of anxiety and depressive behaviours (Vitale et al., 2022). In addition, individuals who feel isolated from their community, possibly because of trauma, often experience higher levels of amygdala activation, which is another contributing factor to feeling more hypervigilant throughout the day in comparison to those who feel socially connected to people in their environment (Vitale et al., 2022). 

THE ROLE OF TRAUMA AND LACK OF CONNECTEDNESS-BELONGING 

School connectedness plays a vital role in protecting adolescents from a range of emotional and behavioral issues (Pastor et al., 2025). Positive relationships with peers and satisfaction within classes can shield students with low effortful control from developing conduct problems later on (Loukas & Murphy, 2006).

RELATIONSHIPS WITH PEERS

Since friendship is important to young people (Duffy et al., 2025), a supportive school environment helps reduce the risk of peer rejection and fosters a sense of school belonging (Baker, 1998). A lack of this peer connectedness in the form of bullying, threatening, goading or teasing has been shown to cause some young people to try and resolve these issues through fighting or bringing weapons to school for self-defense (Duffy et al., 2025; Porter, et al., 2020). 

Alternatively, peer connectedness has been linked to positive outcomes like lower levels of depression, better emotional regulation and higher self-efficacy in teenagers (Pastor et al., 2025). It is also associated with fewer externalising behaviours such as substance use, aggression and risky sexual behaviour (Loukas et al., 2010). Moreover, feeling connected at school has been shown to reduce the risk of suicidal thoughts, especially in adolescents who have experienced cyberbullying or electronic victimisation (Pastor et al., 2025).

RELATIONSHIPS WITH ADULTS IN SCHOOL

A lack of connectedness and belonging in schools can stem from negative interactions with teachers, which may reflect poor teacher-student relationships and contribute to students feeling alienated (Sancho & Cline, 2012; Duffy, Bridgeman & Froustis, et al., 2025). A study noted that children in schools narrated negative behaviours from their teachers like physical and verbal punishment: “teachers scolded them harshly and also slapped them if they went against any rule or did not follow teachers’ instructions” (Anand, 2014). 

In a study to test a new tool to better understand belonging in schools, they found that feeling a lack of belonging particularly occurred when teachers made students feel “dumb”, “stupid”, unsafe or less secure in the classroom or school grounds (Porter, et al., 2020). Peer relationships that involved conflict, threats or bullying created a feeling of unsafety and therefore students struggled to feel connection and belonging, particularly vulnerable youth.

In contrast, positive teacher behaviours play a crucial role in creating a supportive school climate that fosters a strong sense of belonging. Teachers who show empathy, actively listen and are emotionally available help students feel more connected to their school environment (Cai et al., 2022; Allen et al., 2021; Shaw, 2019; Duffy et al., 2025). Studies have shown that supportive teachers promote mutual care, respect, fairness and encouragement, all of which are vital elements of a positive classroom atmosphere (Allen et al., 2018). Such support not only enhances belonging but also has been identified as the strongest predictor of it, alongside individual student characteristics. When students perceive their teachers as fair and caring, and when classroom conflict is minimised, their feelings of inclusion and acceptance grow (Allen et al., 2018; Allen et al., 2021; Anderman, 2003; Wagle et al., 2021; Duffy et al., 2025). Additionally, academic support and an emphasis on effort and personal improvement further contribute to a sense of belonging (Slaten et al., 2016; Anderman, 2003). 

In the study by Porter et al. (2020) discussed above, students reported that they feel belonging when they are able to participate in school activities with other peers, have school friends that care about them, feel supported by acts of kindness, helpfulness and care, have opportunities to contribute to the school (eg. volunteering or supporting school events) being part of the school community, being congratulated and recognised for their achievements, and being valued as a person rather than solely for their school performance. A case study of schools found that the teachers who interacted in a “positive way”, showed “genuineness” and “commitment”, were “understanding”, showed “respect”, “listened” to students, expressed care and support (Rowe & Stewar, 2011) were most valued by students. These characteristics make young people feel a sense of connection and belonging in school.

Ultimately, teachers who form positive, respectful relationships with their students create an environment where students feel valued and connected, leading to better emotional and academic outcomes (Greenwood & Kelly, 2019; Porter et al., 2021).  Therefore, coping with adverse situations becomes more manageable with the support of positive teacher and peer relationships.

THE LINK BETWEEN COPING AND CONNECTEDNESS-BELONGING 

Lazarus argues that coping itself is not inherently good or bad but rather depends on the specific context in which it is applied. A strategy that is highly effective in one situation may have the opposite effect in another, especially when adolescents lack guidance from supportive systems such as their school (Lazarus, 1993). Avoidant coping refers to coping strategies such as denial, distancing and wishful thinking to drive out stress rather than addressing it directly. Another name for it would be emotion-focused coping, meaning efforts to manage emotions in the moment rather than changing the stressor itself at the root (Gerhard, 2019). 

Avoidant coping can temporarily lower the level of stress by minimising emotional engagement with the issue, however, when overused in situations where proactive action is possible (such as seeking help for bullying or academic struggles), it becomes a trap that sustains the stressor and even reinforces disconnection (Scott, 2021). For instance, a student who feels disconnected might avoid participating in group projects, thus even further extending isolation and disconnection. According to Daly et al., a common reason disconnected youth turn to avoidant coping is that they perceive adults as untrustworthy and their environments as unchangeable. For instance, students in schools with zero-tolerance discipline systems may feel powerless to address conflicts constructively, leading to cycles of denial and disengagement (Daly et al., 2010).

Research shows that school connectedness plays an extremely important role in helping young people develop healthy coping mechanisms. When students feel supported, accepted and valued at school, they are more likely to manage stress and emotional challenges in healthier ways. Another study found that students who felt emotionally safe, supported and connected were more likely to utilise healthier, longer-term coping mechanisms such as adaptive coping (Lazarus, 1993). Another study found that adolescents with higher school connectedness are more likely to engage in problem-solving and help-seeking behaviours, rather than shutting down, self-isolating or acting out (Peng et al., 2024). Similarly, another study highlighted how higher school connectedness helps reduce anxiety and depression over time (Raniti et al., 2022). This, in turn, shows how school connectedness can protect adolescents’ mental health. Overall, connectedness provides students with a mental safety net, encouraging them to use healthier coping techniques and in turn helping them to respond to challenges in a healthier way rather than avoidance or potentially harmful behaviours. 

There is a theoretical basis to suggest that a student’s sense of belonging to their peer group or school environment may parallel how individuals connect with natural surroundings, both serving to enhance wellbeing and adaptive coping (Gawrych, 2024). Adaptive coping strategies are more likely to be used by those who feel a strong sense of social and nature connectedness (Gawrych, 2024). Youth who experience belonging are more likely to use positive reappraisal, which can lead to growth, resilience and better relationships, even after stressful or traumatic events (Lazarus, 1993).

A study carried out in Canberra, Australia utilised 24 people from a variety of vulnerable youth services in Australia where individuals were interviewed for an hour to talk about their life experiences and connection to others following traumatic events over the span of their lives. Overall, researchers concluded that five key aspects were integral to overcoming isolation posed by negative past events. These included sharing connections with others, being able to participate in meaningful activities, feeling a sense of belonging, feeling a sense of hope for the future and being able to feel proud of their accomplishments. These five domains were especially important for vulnerable youth populations in being able to form positive relationships with others and to cope with traumatic events from their past (Noble-Carr et al., 2014). Connectedness in schools also may offset the negative effects of poor family relations (Loukas et al., 2010).

Evidence in this literature review suggests that strengthening connectedness and belonging to school can have a positive effect on adolescents’ ability to better cope with adversity and trauma and have a better school experience.

DISCUSSION

Findings from a review of literature identified, “To what extent does having a sense of connectedness or belonging influence the ways in which young people cope with past trauma?”

Our research started with an exploration of the role of ACEs in the development of trauma. The findings showed that the more adverse childhood experiences a young person has, the more likely they are to experience trauma. The trauma from these experiences can affect long-term changes to their neurological development, which makes young people more sensitive to interpreting social situations and managing their emotions in response to them, particularly in school, where they often feel misunderstood, not listened to, labelled or excluded. For instance, the repeated activation of the HPA axis which copes with stress can create higher cortisol levels, contributing to changes in their emotional processing mechanisms (Cross et al., 2017), leading to traits like hypervigilance.  Adolescents who negatively cope with trauma through avoidant or aggressive behaviour over an extended period of time often have differing connections between their amygdala, which processes fear, and the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex, which manages cognitive interpretations of their experiences. The excessive activation of the amygdala is another factor associated with hypervigilance in response to trauma and high levels of anxiety in the likelihood of a perceived threat (Thijssen et al., 2020). This tends to contribute to feelings of unease or even paranoia around new people which can prevent them from feeling connected within their school or community (Gotter, 2023).

The capacity to manage emotions can lead to difficulties in peer and teacher relationships. The lack of peer connectedness often can lead to violence or self-defense behaviours (Duffy et al., 2025). Positive peer relationships, on the other hand, can  reduce conduct problems in students with low effortful control (Loukas & Murphy, 2006) and lower depression, risky behaviours and suicide risk (Pastor et al., 2025; Loukas et al., 2010). 

The emotional effects of trauma also can affect teacher relationships, particularly when teachers fail to recognise or respond to students’ emotional needs (Porter et al., 2021), showing little empathy or emotional support (Cai, 2022; Allen et al., 2021; Shaw, 2019) or being antagonistic in their behaviour or language. These teacher behaviours can elicit negative, avoidant or reactive coping behaviours from students with trauma, particularly when they experience a perceived lack of fairness or mutual respect in the classroom (Allen et al., 2018) or when academic support is either limited or overly focused on performance (Slaten, 2016; Anderman, 2003). Most of all, teacher-student relationships can be severely damaged when students are met with harsh discipline or verbal punishment that causes them to fear the teacher instead of trusting them (Anand, 2014).

Coping with trauma, therefore, affects the extent to which adolescents feel a sense of connectedness and belonging to their school environment. When there is a lack of connectedness and belonging, coping becomes more difficult. Disconnected youth may start adopting ineffective, or even detrimental, avoidant-coping strategies such as denial or distancing. These emotion-focused approaches may offer temporary comfort; however, they can become maladaptive when overused, trapping students in cycles of disconnecting. Without trust in adult support or belief in their own ability to change their status, disconnected youth perceive proactive coping as futile. Avoidance perpetuates stressors while deepening isolation, thus transforming coping from a potential trauma-coping tool into a reinforcing mechanism of distress.

When there is a strong sense of connectedness and belonging, youth are more likely to use healthier adaptive coping strategies with greater impact. Young people who feel a strong sense of connectedness and belonging are also more likely to seek support and use healthier problem-solving strategies rather than acting out in a potentially dangerous manner. Supportive relationships within school provide students with a feeling of safety and, in turn, help students to manage stress, build resilience and trust the people in their school environment. Research shows that stronger school connectedness not only has a direct correlation with mental health but also correlates strongly with better academic performance in students (Lazarus, 1993).

ACTIONS TO STRENGTHEN CONNECTEDNESS AND BELONGING

Research shows some effective ways to increase the sense of connectedness and belonging in schools. This includes strategies to build positive and supportive student-teacher relationships, implementing anti-bullying and conflict resolution programmes, support for learning challenges and mental health difficulties, and restorative and reintegrative practices for young people who are excluded from school (Duffy et al., 2025). Most importantly, providing young people with trauma with a voice and platform to express their needs and participate in decision making on issues affecting them can increase their sense of connectedness and belonging to school so they can better cope with their adversities. These measures have been found to be more effective when there is consistency in their application. These practices aid in building positive and supportive relationships in a safer school environment, with a stronger sense of voice, connectedness and belonging for students who feel disconnected.  

Mainstream schools with exclusionary and punitive policies can learn from Alternative Provision (AP) schools that tend to enrol higher rates of young people that have been excluded from mainstream schools. In a qualitative study interviewing young people across jurisdictions in the United Kingdom with experience of school exclusion, adolescents described how positive practices within AP schools nurtured higher levels of connectedness among students, and between students and teachers, due to smaller class sizes that allowed them to build more positive relationships with their teachers (Duffy et al., 2025). They felt the teachers were more patient, empathetic and understanding, which facilitated an environment with greater trust and compassion, which in turn made way for students to perform better academically. For instance, a student named Tina from Northern Ireland, stated that “…in a school you feel good in, you’re more likely to do your work better; you’re more likely to listen to what teachers are saying,” hence demonstrating the relationship between feeling safe and comfortable in a school environment and being able to listen, focus, learn and perform better academically.

CONCLUSION

The implication of this research provides an opportunity for researchers to engage in qualitative and longitudinal studies to track the progress of students from adverse backgrounds in schools successful at facilitating connectedness and belonging. Students spend a significant portion of their life in school. A school environment that doesn’t feel emotionally and psychologically safe diminishes one’s hope that they can exist in a school environment without retreating to a self-protective mode, reacting or disengaging to express their distress. For adolescents with trauma and adverse experiences, coping positively with the demands of school becomes more difficult. This literature review provided evidence that connectedness and belonging can minimise the effects of trauma so that students can trust that their positive coping skills will lead to better school outcomes as opposed to negative coping skills that can lead to more disconnection and even harm. As the core of establishing connectedness and belonging is relational, it is recommended that schools implement relational programmes that strengthen social-emotional, conflict resolution skills between peers and help teachers to understand the devastating effects of trauma on young people to better address their needs. Connected students who perceive teachers as mentors and not disciplinarians are more likely to strengthen their self-belief that they can cope with their trauma, build positive self-identities, set future goals and discover new life opportunities because they have advocates that believe in them.

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