Report: How Gen-Z Views School and What a Sense of Belonging Means to Them

When a 20-year-old New Yorker recently reflected on her high school experience, she said the things she learned weren’t “very helpful to where I am now.”

“I don’t really think most of my classes that I took in high school I have in my brain anymore,” she told researchers who authored the Voices of Gen Z Study, an annual report conducted by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation about Gen-Z’s attitude toward school and life after high school.

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What stuck with her, however, were the teachers that “made an impact,” and who she maintains relationships with years later. 

Her response mirrors the feelings of many of the students in her age group — one of thousands of Gen-Z students and young adults who were recently polled by Gallup in late May and early June of this year.

The poll included nearly 3,200 people between the ages of 14 and 29, with more than 1,700 of respondents currently enrolled in middle or high school.  

The survey found student engagement, enjoyment toward school and hopefulness for the future strongly correlated with a child’s relationship with their teachers and whether they felt they belonged at school.

But, “unfortunately, we found that in that respect,” said Zach Hrynowski, a senior educator researcher at Gallup, “there are a lot of students who are reporting that they don’t have that experience.’”

Since 2023, engagement has steadily increased, with 51% of Gen-Z students likely to agree or strongly agree that school allows them to do their best, a 14 percentage point increase over the last four years. Students in 2026 are 10 percentage points more likely to feel challenged by schoolwork (from 50% in 2023 to 60%) and six points (57% vs 63%) more likely to say teachers communicate the importance of what they’re learning. 

But even with several engagement trends upward, there was no “meaningful change in the percentage of students who agree they have learned something interesting in the past week,” the report said.

While the majority of students reported positive school experiences, including reports of having good relationships with teachers, a large number of kids are still being left behind — with 40% of students saying their classwork is not interesting and that they did not agree that they feel prepared for the future.

“This year’s findings reiterate that many students continue to struggle with their enjoyment of and engagement at school,” the report said. “For these students, the problem is not that some of their courses are tedious or irrelevant to their future; rather, they say that nothing at school interests them, and they struggle to find outlets to do what they are naturally good at.”

Forty-eight percent of students said they didn’t enjoy going to school most or all days and nearly half of Gen-Z students (49%) said school doesn’t “allow them to do what they do best every day” — which is an improvement from 63% in survey results in 2023, the report said, but still high. 

Researchers found student engagement was connected to “several larger outcomes,” including reporting higher satisfaction with their quality of life and what’s to come in the future. Gen-Z students who felt more connected at school were five times more likely to look forward to school most days and feel prepared for the future compared to their peers who reported a lack of belonging.

This year’s survey further explored the teacher-student relationship and its impact deeper than previous reports  — asking students about whether teachers knew about their interests, whether their classwork was tailored to their strengths, and “at the most basic level, if you’re having a bad day in the classroom, do you have a teacher who would recognize that and check in on you?” Hrynowski said.

“We knew from previous reports that what was happening in the classroom obviously is really important, and whether students feel interested and engaged in what they’re learning,” he added. “What we also found this year, … [was] the statistical connection between the relationship that students have with their teachers and the extent they’re engaged in the classroom.”

And many Gen-Z students reported struggling with building connections with the people around them.

About three in 10 said they didn’t belong at school, didn’t have an adult who regularly checked in on them and didn’t feel like they had someone at school who understood their interests or strengths. The gap also extended to peer relationships, with just 30% of children reporting they had things in common with most of their classmates, and even less (26%) saying they trusted most of their classmates.

“If you don’t feel like you belong in a classroom, you don’t feel comfortable speaking up, you don’t chat with your friends about something that you learned that was interesting to you, … then you’re really missing a critical aspect of the school experience,” Hrynowski said.

Students who lack connection with their peers, educators and school work “are notably less likely to feel prepared for their postgraduation future,” the report said.

“Optimism about the future doesn’t always translate into preparedness. While 80% of Gen Z K-12 students say they have a great future ahead of them, only six in 10 feel prepared for it,” the report found, adding that while the results from 2026 are a 17% increase from 2023, the gap continues to “widens sharply along engagement lines.”

Children who reported not having plans to go to college also had “significantly fewer engaging experiences” compared to their peers to plan to pursue a two or four year degree, the report said.

For kids pursuing higher education, 67% reported their teacher made classwork feel important, compared to only 56% of students who said they do not want to go to college. College-bound students were also at least 10 percentage points more likely to feel they belonged at school, feel as if they had an adult who recognized their talents and also felt encouraged to pursue their goals compared to their peers who did not plan to pursue higher education.

“Sometimes when I bring [these] numbers up, folks say ‘That’s just the way school is. Some kids don’t belong. Some kids don’t feel like they fit in. … Some kids are good at school and some aren’t. Some kids enjoy school and some don’t, that’s just the way it is,’ … and I came at this report rejecting that notion,” Hrynowski said. “That’s the way it is, but it definitely isn’t how it has to be.”

He argued the student responses point to what kids need, what they’re asking for and what works for them, and that it’s up for districts and states to take the next steps to meet students where they are.

“I think the recipe is there. The roadmap is clear. If we want more students to be having [better] experiences, it starts with the teacher,” Hrynowski said. “The next question is: What do we need to do to help more teachers do that work? … How do we get more teachers doing the things that only teachers can do that reaches students, cultivates their interest, helps them feel balanced in a positive way and see why what they’re doing in the classroom today is relevant to something they want to do outside of it?”

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation provides financial support to The 74.