belonging - in digital classrooms, in communities, in contemporary global culture
Tomorrow morning, early, I return to Canada. My Bonnie flies over the ocean, lol. Sabbatical, fin. This Belonging and Place project has felt like a pipe dream, even as it unfolded. Who gets to spend weeks crossing the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, spring and fall both? For work? And be welcomed in, repeatedly wined, [ ]
This project emerged happenstance from the confluence of a lucky trip to Scotland and my own disillusionment. As I ve gone on about in previous posts, in 2023, I was worn thin on AI hype, grieving the capture and enclosure of my field by forces far removed from the participatory educational ideals I d originally valued in [ ]
The question of what it means to be a person who works in digital education has been one I ve struggled with, increasingly, over the past decade. I stumbled into this field in the 90s, when the university where I was doing my M.Ed transitioned their Open Learning office and their distance programs from teleconference and [ ]
Dùthchas: Belonging as Home This past summer, preparing to delve into this sabbatical project, I read Scottish social histories and scoured my mother s PEI Scots history bookshelf, trying to wrap my mind around the sociocultural and socioeconomic shifts that rang the knell for the old Gaelic order of the Highland clan system. I was trying to [ ]
The photo memories feature on Facebook – and yes, I should ditch Meta…and no, I haven’t yet – reminded me this past weekend that it’s been two years since I first landed at the University of Highlands and Islands, for #OER23. My first time seeing much of Inverness in daylight. Everything was April sunshine and [ ]
I haven’t been able to write since US election day. I live in Canada…admittedly, a four-minute drive from the tunnel to Detroit, but still. I am writing about a university in Scotland. These are all distinct nation-state compartments, each with its own colour on the map. But still. Academic confession: I feel shame about my [ ]
This book is rooted in the premise that Othering, or the process of stigmatizing those not like us, is at the core of human division and isolation. The book asserts that belonging is structured and patterned in society, with material substrates and preconditions that function as necessary conditions. It outlines othering as particularly visible along [ ]
This study examines the experiences of twenty postgraduate students in online learning settings, their feelings of isolation or inclusion, and the elements of their particular classes that helped them engage. The paper asserts a need, post-pandemic, to explore online learning on its own terms. Learner-instructor interaction, learner-learner interaction, and learner-content interaction were all…
This book, written by and for educators, sets out to counter the narrow ‘bubble’ that a white and feminized profession of youth educators can reinforce. While this bubble may be aimed at protecting young children from worldly perspectives, the book outlines how it also reinforces biases, hegemonies, and neoliberal human capital perspectives. Instead, this text [ ]
This Stanford dschool text is an illustrated guide to using core levers of design to facilitate and foster rituals, spaces, roles/responsibilities, and systems that support feelings of belonging to emerge. The book’s premise is that groups are unlikely to thrive unless people feel included and valued, and that the experience of belonging has the capacity [ ]
This research study overviews how belonging is framed in higher education studies, particularly in relation to learners with non-majority identities: students with racial/ethnic minority identities, or who are LGTBQ+, have disabilities, or are first generation. The study begins from the recognition that marginalized identity groups experience increased stress and barriers to belonging in higher…
This psychology-based perspective on belonging frames the idea that there is currently a crisis of belonging in Western society, and overviews the concept of situation-crafting, or small actions that can bolster belonging, as a means of addressing it. The text emphasizes controlled-trial studies to support its claims, but encourages reflection on core values and expressing [ ]
This US education-centred book focuses on belonging through dignity as a fundamental need, foundational to educational change and to democratic and equitable education. It approaches dignity as the core of belonging, and dignity prioritization as a path to disrupting the common cycle of equity dysfunction in school settings, particularly with regards to failed efforts to [ ]
This paper is a meta-analysis, overviewing more than fifty other studies on individual and social level factors that influence school belonging. Its intention is to identify factors schools should emphasize to best support students. It focuses on specific themes academic motivation, emotional stability, personal characteristics, parent support, peer support, teacher support, gender, race and [ ]
This book’s primary argument, grounded in historical and anthropological contrasts to modernity, is that interconnectedness and adversity can lead to greater social cohesion and feelings of belonging. More military than education-focused, and critiqued for nostalgic and ahistorical representation of pre-modern experiences, the book’s focus on how wealth accumulation and personal property end up…