The second dimension of the ECEPAA Index shifts the focus from grades and test scores to something hard to measure but equally consequential: the quality of daily life within the school. A student can attend every lesson, pass every exam, and still not feel part of the class. They can sit next to the same classmates for five years without ever being invited into their social world. This is not inclusion and the relational dimension of the ECEPAA Index is designed to capture it.

This dimension asks a question that formal data cannot answer: is the school experienced as a place of belonging, or a place of exclusion? The answer matters not only for wellbeing, but for educational outcomes. Students who feel excluded disengage; students who disengage are at far greater risk of early school leaving.

How does the dimension work?

The relational dimension is built around four interconnected variables: participation in school activities, social network in the school setting, quality of interactions with native peers, and family involvement in school life. These variables form an interconnected mechanism shaping educational outcomes.

A student who does not participate in extracurricular activities has fewer opportunities to build mixed friendships; a student whose social network is entirely homogeneous has fewer interactions with native peers; a student who feels excluded is less likely to remain engaged and their family may not feel welcomed by the institution either.

One of the most analytically significant variables is family involvement. The risk, when measuring this, is to read low participation as disinterest. When they do not show up to parent-teacher meetings, the reason is almost always access, not motivation: language barriers, incompatible work schedules, institutional distrust, lack of information. When the ECEPAA data show that migrant families who do manage to participate demonstrate high engagement, the finding reframes the policy problem entirely: from changing families to changing institutions.

Another particularly revealing indicator concerns what happens in class when students are free to choose their own working groups. Who chooses whom, when no structure is imposed, says more about the real state of inclusion than any explicit declaration about school climate.

A school that reduces inequalities only in the classroom but leaves social exclusion untouched has not achieved inclusion.

Here you can download the full summary on the Relational Dimension to go deeper into the methodology and the four variables.