The Issue of Belonging

The feeling of belonging is very underrated in educational policy settings. In the BC New Curriculum (BC curriculum site) there is a healthy mention of “exploring our sense of identity and belonging” in the big ideas part of many subject areas ( See last entry of Big Ideas), but when it comes down to the action we take in classrooms and hallways to foster and develop belonging, setting outcomes  in school is not even on the radar of assessment policies let alone in the curriculum in a meaningful way. It seems to fall on the shoulders of principals and vice principals to set the tone of the school in that regard. Furthermore, it is up to the individual teachers to what level they will build an environment of belonging in their classroom.

There may be a focus on social skills and community-building at the elementary level, but by the time students get to secondary school, teachers are basically mandated to only pay lip service to the idea. The BC curriculum for secondary subjects is so very wide open to interpretation that a teacher could potentially implement their subject content without any direct attention called to building a sense of community in their classroom, in the halls, or in the school community.

It is a peculiar thing to realize that many research articles on belonging lean on the social science side of the issue, looking at students’ sense of belonging and making correlations and relations to academic success, psycho-social adjustment and maturity, happiness, self-esteem, self-identity, etc.. To the well-practised teacher, this relationship of belonging and benefits come as no surprise. When we look at the colleagues around us who invest the most time with students and colleagues between classes, before and after school, we see a commitment that we might think is a little zealous. It may reflect a more subtle phenomenon, like a feedback loop. The more one takes an active interest in the school community and culture, the more one feels the reward of being a part of something bigger than herself/himself and the easier the subsequent effort is to be an active participant in the development of belonging. If we look back at the theoretical work of Maslow (1954) and the Hierarchy of Needs (see Diagram of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs), it becomes quite obvious that students and teachers alike cannot build upon their self-esteem or feelings of accomplishment until they have first attained a sense of belonging, of being cared-for, of feeling safe and secure in their school/workplace. This kind of elemental scaffolding is not taking place on any sort of deliberate level in our schools.

A Supporting Article

The article that both supports this idea of belonging as a positive and necessary element to ensure the success of all parties concerned in education was co-authored by Allen, Kern, Vella-Brodrick, Hattie, & Waters and entitled “What Schools Need To Know About Fostering Belonging: A Meta-Analysis.”  To summarize the study, “a systematic review identified 10 themes that influence school belonging at the student level during adolescence in educational settings (academic motivation, emotional stability, personal characteristics, parent support, peer support, teacher support, gender, race and ethnicity, extracurricular activities and environmental/school safety).” (Allen et al., 2018). The average association between the themes and school belonging was studied via meta-analysis across 51 studies following the Prefered Reporting Items for Systematic and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines for reporting the study inclusion process. It was not a big surprise that teacher support and positive personal characteristics were the strongest predictors of school belonging.

The results confirmed the findings of the literature review referencing some studies showed that a lack of belonging is related to “incidents of fighting, bullying and vandalism, disruptive behaviour and emotional distress, risk-taking behaviours such as substance and tobacco use, and early sexualisation (e.g. Goodenow, 1993; Lonczak et al., 2002; Samdal et al., 1998; Wilson & Elliot, 2003).” (Allen et al., 2018).

The findings of the study suggested that school leaders and educators be encouraged to change school systems and processes to build qualities within students that will improve perceptions of school belonging.  This is significant and since it seems to suggest a paradigm shift is needed to embed the promotion and nurturing of belonging into the fabric of how everyone communicates and establishes their learning environments both inside and outside the classroom. Allen et al. (2018) go on to reiterate, “The findings underscore the value of student-teacher relationships, not only for academic outcome (Hattie 2009) but also for a sense of belonging to a school community” [and] “Home, school, and community must work together to create a supportive atmosphere that emphasises the importance of school belonging” (Allen, et al., 2018).

There are many videos by students, teachers, and institutions extolling the benefits of belonging (see list of YouTube videos about Belonging in Schools ). What is interesting to note, however, like the prevailing research, most of the focus is thrust in the classroom or on the students themselves. This where my personal story and direction of research come into the picture.

The Connecting Context: Persistent Problems and  Potential Directions

I teach at a school with around 1,200 students from grades 9-12. Not long into my career, I decided to take on the role of the teachers’ professional development representative for the school since the position had been vacated for some time and no one was stepping up. I thought I was too inexperienced for the job, but 18 years later I had a good idea why no one seemed to want the job. Partly it is thankless for the most part. There’s a culture of complacency among the teaching staff about professional development that might stem from an ennui that I have overheard being voiced at times like, “Not this again. I’ve got better things to do.” The times when I have received positive feedback have been when I have had the staff get on their feet, interact with each other in the context of their work, who they are in relation to the building, their own personal history with the space, with students past and present, with the culture of school as it existed for them.

I discovered that bonding with school, actively realizing how each of us belong to and make up the culture of our workplace, is a deep-work kind of professional development. It leaves one with renewed optimism. There are many resources for creating effective professional development (e.g., 6 Keys to Effective Pro-D ).  Nothing, however, compares to the kind that invites the person to include their own context into the equation to add value to the whole. If we would take the 10 themes that influence belonging from the study and use them to describe how teachers in their own ways build a culture of belonging, the positive energy from that exercise may help to encourage teachers to go beyond their classrooms to nurture belonging in the wider school community through clubs, after-school activities, coaching, mentoring beginning teachers, etc.. This is partly the action I envision as result of exploring the research around a question like, “What activities motivate teachers to become more invested in their school outside their classrooms?” Or, “What policy is missing from school systems to ensure that all stakeholders can reach their full potential?”  Perhaps even, “What kind(s) of social assessment are missing from reporting to bring social learning at the high school level into the scope of formal education systems?”

Tough question. How many times has this been asked? This may seem at first to be an easy fix by adding it to students’ Graduation Transition Plans, but that would likely become another form of tokenism. This issue requires focused, concerted attention and effort in order for realizations to express themselves in meaningful ways. Teachers often feel overworked by the administrative minutia that has been off-loaded to them, duties that were once the exclusive purview of the office staff. Inclusive policies challenge some teachers and a shortage of preparation time, support mechanisms, and personnel to back up mandated policies that add to the job description of teaching make many of them just say no at the end of instructional time. So the problem persists, but there are a small handful of teachers usually in every school that actively engage in building a sense of belonging outside of classes. Let the research begin to bring this issue out of the shadows and, in turn, to perhaps raise the morale, self-esteem, and sense of belonging for teachers and the wider school community.

Here is a link to the presentation given in class: Connecting the “Paper”: A Possible Direction”

                                                                                Reference

Allen, K. et al. (2018.) What Schools Need to Know About Fostering Belonging: a Meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review 30 pp. 1-34. doi:  10.1007/s10648-016-9389-8