The Reciprocal Relationship between School Connectedness and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: A Meta-analytic Cross-lagged Panel Analysis

Theorists have long assumed that school connectedness and depressive symptoms influence each other in adolescence. However, previous empirical studies on the strength and direction of this relationship have yielded inconsistent results. The present study used cross-lagged modeling to meta-analyze the available longitudinal data (27 studies with 27 effects involving 57,074 participants, mean age ranging from 11.23 to 17.4 years) on the relationship between school connectedness and depressive symptoms in adolescence, and the possible moderating effects of publication and study characteristics. With prior levels of the relevant outcomes controlled for, results showed that prior school connectedness negatively predicted subsequent depressive symptoms with β = –0.07, 95% CI [–0.12, –0.02], while prior depressive symptoms also negatively predicted subsequent school connectedness with β = –0.14, 95% CI [–0.19, –0.08]. Moderation analyses showed that there was a moderating effect of publication year, study quality in the protective effect of school connectedness on depressive symptoms and a moderating effect of publication year, study quality, and culture in the debilitating effect of depressive symptoms on school connectedness. As the publication year became more recent, the effect of school connectedness on depressive symptoms decreased, and the effect of depressive symptoms on school connectedness decreased. As study quality increased, the effect of school connectedness on depressive symptoms decreased, and the effect of depressive symptoms on school connectedness decreased. As the individualism index increased, the effect of depressive symptoms on school connectedness increased. These findings suggest that the link between school connectedness and adolescence depressive symptoms is symmetrically reciprocal and robust, adding support to that explaining the reciprocal relationship necessitates integrating Self-Determination Theory and Social Development Theory within the framework of Developmental Contextualism Theory.