The politics of student belonging: identity and purpose

Abstract

Belonging is considered to be a positive foundation for students’ well-being and success at university; however, in this article, we argue that it is time to think about belonging more critically. This research highlights how students experience and create multiple belongings. Drawing upon empirical data from interviews and video blogs with students in the UK and Australia, we identify how calls for integrated, uniform, approaches to building belonging in universities are unhelpful. Instead, we foreground the situated and political ways in which students make and curate meaningful and purposeful connections and safe spaces. Our research points to the personalised nature of belonging. We show how individual learners often enact belonging in ways that disrupt or challenge institutional assumptions and expectations. We advocate for critical discussions between staff and students related to the affordances of embracing the multiple ways students choose to belong, at different times and in different spaces.