Neighborhoods and educational opportunity structures: an examination of factors affecting sense of belonging among high school students

Prior studies have demonstrated how living in resource-deprived neighborhoods is associated with poorer developmental outcomes including depressed academic achievement, poorer well-being, and lower school engagement. At the same time, studies have shown that access to cultural capital in the form of knowledgeable and supportive relatives, peers, and non-familial adults, and enrichment opportunities in school is critical to fostering greater school engagement, particularly for youth from disadvantaged backgrounds who are more likely to feel excluded and disengaged from school. This dissertation builds on these prior bodies of work by examining how the neighborhood and school environments affect opportunity structures to develop a connection to and greater sense of belonging in school. This dissertation utilizes data from the first wave of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 when students were in 9th grade combined with tract-level data on the quality of students’ neighborhoods of residence from the 2009 – 2013 American Community Survey. A multilevel mixed effects regression analysis approach was used to model the association between structural aspects of neighborhoods and schools, student-reported sense of school belonging, and the role of access to STEM enrichment opportunities, and social capital in the form of supportive parents, school peers, and teachers and counselors in bolstering sense of belonging in school. The findings demonstrate a significant negative association between living in more structurally disadvantaged neighborhoods and students’ sense of belonging in school. However, access to STEM enrichment opportunities, and school and family social capital dampened this association suggesting the important role enrichment opportunities and social capital play in bolstering students’ sense of school belonging. This work has implications for education policy as it has the potential to highlight the importance of fostering opportunities for socialization through school-based enrichment programs which may foster greater school attachment and improve educational attainment, particularly among youth from historically disenfranchised groups.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Human Dvlpmt & Family Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Duran, Naomi Sara

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lleras, Christy
• Bost, Kelly
• Marchand, Aixa
• Kolak, Marynia

• Neighborhood Effects
• Educational Opportunities
• Cultural Capital
• High School
• School Belonging

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Naomi Duran

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129577

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129577