School belonging and math attitudes among high school students in advanced math

•Students’ sense of school belonging positively predicts liking of science.•Students’ sense of school belonging positively predicts valuing of science.•In Portugal, effect of school belonging on liking/valuing science differs by gender. This study used the Trends in International Math Science (TIMSS) 2015 Advanced data from nine countries to examine the relationship between students’ sense of school belonging and their attitudes towards mathematics, and the extent to which student gender moderated these relationships. Results showed that students’ sense of school belonging emerged as a statistically significant, positive predictor of students’ liking and valuing of mathematics. For most countries, no significant moderating effect of student gender was observed. However, among Portuguese students, the relationship between students’ sense of school belonging and each attitude measure was stronger for males than for females.