The Impact of Identity Styles on Sense of Belonging to School with the Mediation of Academic Self-Concept among Female Students: A Structural Modeling Analysis

The present study was undertaken to investigate the impact of identity styles on sense of belonging to school with the mediation of academic self-concept. The research method was descriptive, correlational. The population of the study comprised the second grade high school girls in district 8 of Tehran in academic year 2014-2015. For the purpose of sampling, 150 students were selected through random cluster sampling method. The instruments included Identity Styles Questionnaire (ISI-6G) (Berzonsky, 1989), Sense of Belonging to School Questionnaire (Brew, Beatty & Watt, 2004), as well as Academic Self-Concept Questionnaire (Delawar, 1994). For the purpose of data analysis, descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (multiple regression and path analysis) were utilized. Results showed that informational and normative identity styles could directly and indirectly predict sense of belonging to school at a 99 percent confidence interval. Diffuse-avoidant identity style can directly affect self-concept and indirectly impact sense of belonging to school. Furthermore, the results indicated that through the mediation of academic self-concept, the two informational and normative identity styles have a direct significant effect on sense of belonging to school, but diffuse-avoidant identity style has no significant impact.