The Relationship between Students’ Sense of Belonging, Grit and Anxiety during Pandemic Times

Covid-19 restrictions in Italy have significantly reduced the „in-presence‟ time spent with classmates and teachers. As a result, this new way of relating to one another has challenged many students by increasing anxiety and depression. In such reality, protective factors such as sense of belonging (SB) and Grit (GR) can reduce anxiety (ANX). Considering the pandemic context, the scope of this study is to explore the relationship between SB/GR and ANX, as a risk factor and to understand whether the relationship between these variables changes based on students‟ grade level (GL): middle school (MS) versus high school (HS). For this purpose, a total of 451 students from North/Central Italy, 71% F (M=15.07, ±2.46), of which 266 from HS, answered an online questionnaire in Spring 2021. Data was analyzed by doing a correlation analysis, difference between groups based on GL and hierarchical regression with SPSS 27. Results for the correlation analysis confirm that SB and GR are positively related; when controlling for differences in GL via t-test analysis, SB and GR are higher for MS. When measuring the SB/GR (Panorama Education, 2016) and its impact on the state of ANX (Spielberger et al., 1983) via the hierarchical regression, SB/GR decrease while ANX increases in particular for HS students. These results highlight that anxiety has had a greater impact specially on HS students. For these reasons we encourage schools to create environments in which they find strategies, as a community, to assist students in developing a sense of belonging and grit.