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Affiliation With School
Attachment to one's school has been called one of the "three A's necessary for school success" (National Center for School Engagement n.d.). Almost one-third of secondary school youth with disabilities (31 percent) report on a 4-point scale feeling part of school "a lot" (figure 12), a rate quite similar to the 32 percent of students in the general population who "strongly agree" with the statement "you feel part of your school."34 Another 35 percent of students with disabilities say they feel "pretty much" part of their school. "Little" sense of affiliation with school is reported by 24 percent of youth with disabilities, and 10 percent say they do not feel part of their school "at all." Students with disabilities are significantly more likely to report a sense of being part of their school "a little" and "not at all" (24 percent and 10 percent) than students in the general population are to "disagree" or "strongly disagree" that they feel part of their school (9 percent and 3 percent, respectively, p < .001 for both comparisons).
Figure 13: Youth with disabilities' reported level of involvement at school
One way students can express their sense of affiliation with school is through their involvement in school activities. In fact, correlational analyses between responses regarding the level of involvement in activities at school and the strength of their feeling of affiliation at school show they are related (r = .27, p < .001). Almost one in five youth with disabilities (19 percent) report being involved at school "every time I have the chance" (figure 13), in contrast to the 30 percent who choose not to be involved "even when I have the chance." Almost one-fourth of youth with disabilities (23 percent) say they are involved "most of the time," and 28 percent are involved "sometimes" when they have the chance. More than 4 in 10 youth with disabilities (43 percent) who were still in high school in the year preceding the interview report having participated in one or more organized group activities outside of class during that time.
34 Calculated for 15- through 19-year-olds using data from Wave II youth interviews of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), 1996 (Udry 1998). Note that the NLTS2 and Add Health items differ in that NLTS2 asked youth to report the degree of their feeling part of their school (e.g., "a lot") whereas Add Health asked youth their degree of agreement with the statement "you feel part of your school" (e.g., "strongly agree").