Modeling the Relationship between Cultural Capital and Sense of School Belonging among Middle School Students: The mediating role of Social and Institutional Trust

Abstract

Cultural capital influencing students̓ attitudes toward school and the value of schooling, as well as transmitting notions about the nature of the wider society and people around them. In this study, the relation between students' cultural capital and three non-cognitive attitudinal outcomes developing in the process of schooling including social trust, institutional trust (both as long-term outcomes), and sense of school belonging (a short-term outcome) was investigated.The present study was conducted with a descriptive-correlational design. A total of 528 students selected from Urmia secondary schools through stratified sampling responded to the questionnaire. The research data were collected using the standard questionnaires (Cultural capital: A researcher-made questionnaire based on the Bourdieu's theory, Social trust: Based on the Rosenberg's (1956) notion of misanthropy, Institutional trust: A researcher-made questionnaire (Sabbagh et al., 2013) and Students' sense of school belonging: A 5-point Likert scale designed by Goodenow (1993)) and their validity and reliability were confirmed.Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to study and evaluate the relationships between the studied variables. Path analysis results showed that, there is a positive and significant relationship between cultural capital and (social–institutional) trust, cultural capital and sense of school belonging and, between (social–institutional) trust and sense of school belonging.So, it can be concluded that, there is a positive and significant relationship between cultural capital of students and sense of school belonging by mediating role of trust in high school students.