Starting school is a common experience for millions of children around the world, but it is not the same experience for children everywhere. Children have different experiences which are related to their own characteristics, their families and communities and the schools they attend. This paper uses a series of longitudinal case studies of young children in Peru in order to determine their views and experiences during the process of transition from home or pre-school into the first grade of primary school.

Sense of belonging is the degree in which students feel integrated with their peers and teachers at school. This study describes sense of belonging among Peruvian students entering high school. Socioeconomic status had no direct effect on sense of belonging but had an indirect effect through achievement. Rural students had higher sense of belonging than their urban peers. This is likely due to rural children seeing the larger, better equipped high schools as improvements over their relatively small and more isolated primary schools.