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Across OECD countries, 76 percent of 15-year-olds feel they belong at school.

About 68 percent of students with the strongest sense of belonging apply additional effort.

Boys and socioeconomically advantaged students report stronger belonging in most countries.

When the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results are released, the focus is usually on the academics: maths scores, science results, and reading. And I appreciate that for many people, academic outcomes are a central goal of schools. But I'm a belonging researcher, so what I really want to know is whether students feel like they belong at school.

The PISA dataset is a unique opportunity to learn more about students' experiences of belonging, how these differ between groups and countries, and how they change over time. While the data represents 15-year-olds, rather than all young people, it offers a unique snapshot at an important developmental age for belonging.

The Latest PISA Report

The latest PISA report, released in September 2026, gives us an international perspective with some findings worth celebrating. On average across OECD countries, 76 percent of 15-year-olds agreed or strongly agreed they felt like they belonged at school. Between 2022 and 2025, belonging scores increased in most participating countries and economies, though it's worth keeping in mind that the previous data were collected fresh off a global pandemic, when many school systems pivoted to online for the first time. This may have strained students' belonging to school when they weren't physically there. I mean, no one needed to worry about being an outsider at school. They were outside. Literally.

Benefits of Belonging

Belonging has well-documented benefits, but the PISA report shows that students with stronger belonging were more likely to report putting in extra effort when things became challenging. On average across OECD countries, 68 percent of students in the highest quarter of school belonging reported this, compared with 51 percent in the lowest quarter. This makes belonging a worthwhile pursuit, especially given other evidence linking school belonging with academic motivation (Korpershoek et al.,........

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