In most of the education systems, students who were socio-economically felt less belonging to school. On average student belonging to school declined by 2% between 2015 to 2018. The portion of students who do not feel like they belong to school has increased since 2003 indicating a trend in the deterioration of school belonging globally. School belonging tends to decrease as students grow older, as indicated in several different research studies. In one study involving students from Latin America, Asia, and Europe, researchers Cari Gillen-O'Neel and Andrew Fuligni found that in childhood, students generally report high levels of school belonging. However, once students transition into middle school and adolescence, their perceptions of school belonging drop significantly. Similarly, a separate study found that students' school belonging decreased in the transition from middle to high school; these students also displayed an increase in depressive symptoms and a decline in social support, which could be considered either causes or consequences of the decline in school belonging. This trend has been replicated in many other studies, suggesting that school belonging declines once students reach adolescence. A meta-analysis of 51 studies (N = 67,378) by K. Allen and colleagues (2018) identified that there are multiple individual and social level factors that influence school belonging. These core themes include academic factors, personal characteristics, social relationships, demographic characteristics, school climate and extra-curricular activities. For many of the determinants of school belonging, it is likely that each of them have a reciprocal relationship with a student's sense of belonging. That is, they operate as both an antecedents or consequences. Research has documented the influence of academic factors (i.e. achievement, motivation, hardiness, interest in school) on students' school belonging. Academic achievement, or one's skills and competencies in school, has been identified as a substantial predictor of school belonging. For example, research has demonstrated that students' grade point averages (GPAs), a common measure of academic achievement, are positively associated with school belonging. This means that students who have higher GPAs have higher levels of school belonging. Studies have also found several measures of academic motivation to be determinants of students' school belonging. Academic motivation encompasses behaviors such as homework completion, setting goals, expectancy of success, and effort and engagement within the classroom. Carol Goodenow and Kathleen Grady found each of these sub-sects of academic motivation to be significant predictors of students' perceptions of school belonging. More recent research has replicated these findings, suggesting that academic motivation plays an important role in developing feelings of school belonging.