More Than a Game: What the World Cup Teaches Us About Youth Belonging
July 6, 2026
This summer, billions of people around the world are watching the same thing. Stadiums are packed. Group chats are buzzing. Strangers in bars are high-fiving over goals. For a few weeks, the World Cup does something rare: it gives people a shared identity and the experience of belonging to something bigger than themselves.
For young people, that feeling is more than a nice-to-have. The Youth Mental Health Tracker data suggest it may be one of the most important things we can offer them.
Belonging is one of the strongest predictors of youth wellbeing
In our nationally representative survey of over 4,000 young people ages 10–24, sense of belonging emerged as one of just six factors consistently linked to youth mental health and wellbeing. It was consistently among the most reliable predictors of how young people are doing, showing up across measures of happiness, life satisfaction, meaning in life, and depression and anxiety.
Young people who felt they belonged to a group, whether friends, school, or their community, were 1.7x more likely to be happy and 1.5x more likely to say life feels meaningful.
However, roughly 1 in 4 US youth say they don't feel that sense of belonging. This is not a small number to simply ignore.
The young people who benefit most are often those with the fewest spaces to belong
When we looked at which groups were most strongly affected by belonging, two stood out.
For multiracial youth, those who felt they belonged were 2.4x more likely to be happy. Additionally, connecting with people who share their racial, cultural, and gender backgrounds emerged as one of the most important positive influences on their mental health.
For non-cisgender youth, the picture was similar: those who felt they belonged were also 2.4x more likely to be happy compared to other peers. Yet only half of non-cisgender youth in our sample reported feeling that sense of belonging.
Young people already know what helps and community is at the top of the list
Youth in our survey pointed to community participation as one of the strategies they found most meaningful. 72% had tried group activities such as sports teams, clubs, community organizations and 66% of those said it helped their mental health. When asked about what had the biggest positive impact on their mental health and wellbeing, youth said the following:
"I want to say my Outdoor School community... It's an incredibly loving and inclusive community. I genuinely feel at home and like I can be exactly who I want to be."
"I developed amazing friendships on my sports team that I hope will last a long time."
The World Cup is a useful illustration of what's possible when collective experiences are built with intention.
What this means for those of us working with youth
As educators, parents, program leaders, and advocates, we are often the ones who build the conditions for belonging in young people's lives. As we think about how best to facilitate belonging for the youth we work with, three things are worth keeping in mind:
Treat belonging as infrastructure, not a bonus. Community sports leagues, after-school clubs, youth centers, and faith communities are not enrichment add-ons, they are mental health infrastructure. The adults and institutions closest to young people are often best positioned to champion these spaces, protect them when budgets tighten, and make the case for their value to decision-makers.
Design for the young people least likely to belong by default. Belonging doesn't happen passively. For multiracial, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized youth, it requires deliberate effort to create spaces where they can show up as themselves. Schools and programs that make inclusion an active practice, rather than an assumed outcome, will have an outsized impact on the young people who need it most.
Use big collective moments as an on-ramp to belonging. Global events like the World Cup or the Olympics are rare opportunities to bring young people together around something genuinely exciting and shared. Schools and youth programs can lean into this and can host watch parties, organize team trivia nights around the tournament, or use the moment as a springboard for ongoing activities that keep those connections alive.
