Sense of Belonging As a Pathway from Positive Childhood Experiences to Young Adult Activism: A Longitudinal Mediation Analysis

Introduction: Civic engagement and activism among young adults are important mechanisms through which marginalized communities advocate for structural change, yet the developmental antecedents of activism remain understudied in social work research. Positive childhood experiences (PCEs)—including supportive relationships, positive school environments, and neighborhood connectedness—have been linked to prosocial outcomes across the life course, but their role in shaping civic participation is less well understood. Sense of belonging represents a plausible mechanism, given its established associations with both PCEs and civic participation; however, longitudinal evidence linking these constructs into young adulthood remains limited. To fill this gap, this study examined whether sense of belonging mediates the longitudinal association between adolescent PCEs and young adult activism.

Methods: We analyzed longitudinal data from Waves 15 and 22 of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (n = 1,937), restricted to young adults completing interviews in both waves. PCEs were measured prospectively at age 15 using a summed index across individual/social, school, and neighborhood domains (α = .73). Sense of belonging in young adulthood was assessed using a 7-item scale of perceived social connectedness (α = .70). Activism was operationalized as frequency of participation in political, solidarity, or social-action activities. Education, gender, and race were included as covariates given established associations with civic engagement. Linear regression and bootstrapped mediation models were estimated to test whether sense of belonging mediated the association between adolescent PCEs and young adult activism and whether this pathway differed by race.

Results: Young adult activism was significantly associated with education (β = 0.189, p < .001), sense of belonging (β = 0.076, p < .001), and Black racial identity (β = 0.159, p = .001), with the model explaining 7.4% of variance. While PCEs were not directly associated with activism, mediation analysis indicated a significant indirect association between positive experiences at age 15 and activism in young adulthood through sense of belonging (β = 0.004, 95% CI [0.001, 0.006]), accounting for 64.5% of the total association between PCEs and activism. This indirect effect remained significant after adjusting for gender and race (p = .002). Moderation analyses indicated that the belonging-to-activism pathway did not differ significantly across racial groups (p = .236).

Conclusion and Implications: Findings suggest that positive experiences during adolescence function as developmental precursors to activism, with PCEs measured at age 15 longitudinally associated with sense of belonging years later, which in turn was associated with activism in young adulthood. By identifying belonging as a relational pathway linking early supportive environments to later participation in social action and civic activities, this study highlights how developmental contexts in adolescence help prepare young people for meaningful participation in collective and democratic life. These results point to the importance of interventions that foster relationship-building, positive school environments, and community connectedness during adolescence as a foundation for long-term civic participation. Future research should examine how structural and systemic factors, including racism and economic inequality, shape these developmental pathways, particularly among youth from historically marginalized communities whose activism remains central to addressing structural inequities.