What does it mean, to belong? How do belonging and not belonging get experienced/expressed in learning contexts? In networks and communities?
I have been teaching for nearly three decades, learning for more…I kinda thought I understood belonging. But I also knew I wanted to stretch my own understandings and leave some trace of them, hence this project. I think of ideas and conceptualizations as threads, tied to other ideas, woven and knotted together to form new shapes. Belonging is a particularly complex set of threads: a concept most people can relate to, but that can be difficult to trace and parse in a coherent – let alone academic – way. It draws on ideas of connection, inclusion, common purpose, kinship, networks, agential relationality, and structural supports: all are elements of belonging, but not full synonyms for it.
This annotated bibliography is an attempt to make transparent and visible some of the threads that weave the fabric of the belonging project. As a collection, this bibliography offers short summaries of texts on various aspects of belonging. It represents a range of disciplinary, pedagogical, and epistemological perspectives, loosely categorized under the headings below. There are multiple entries to each category, listed in reverse chronological order, and the alphabetic bibliography is shared below the categories. Together, these texts represent the core academic foundations for the idea(s) of belonging deployed in this research, in the sense that questions for participants and categories for analysis were shaped and bounded mostly by this collection of readings. The place-based and topologies sections took me into particularly rich and fruitful territories…expanding my disciplinary frameworks for thinking about how to work with and represent social and cultural determinants of belonging. There’s always more that isn’t formally represented, too – last year my online colleague and friend Clarissa Sorensen-Unruh published (most of) a blog series thinking deeply about belonging, grief, abundance, cognitive bias and how online and f2f belonging intersect. We went in different directions, but I highly recommend reading her series.
This annotated bibliography was jointly produced by myself and the newly-minted Dr. Thu Le, who served as R.A. for bibliography/literature review elements of the project’s development. I am so grateful for Thu’s work in scoping and summarizing more than 40 of the 75+ texts annotated here.
NOTE: There are, additionally, 20+ texts – mostly books – on Scottish history, its Highlands and islands, Scottish and Gaelic migration and culture in Prince Edward Island, and the specific complexities of belonging in and/or to a place deeply marked by the power relations shorthanded as ‘The Clearances’ that shaped this project but are NOT represented here. I delved into these books over the summer and fall of 2024 as I attempted to do justice to this project, but have chosen not to include them here at this time, though they – plus my life experiences of belonging (and not belonging) and those of all the people I got to interview – influence the project and its analyses deeply. Because I want this annotated bibliography to serve as an Open Educational Resource (OER) specifically on belonging in education, the Scottish place-based resources will get their own due, in other aspects of the project, in time.
For now…may this side of the site serve to make visible some of the academic shoulders this project is balanced upon. 🙂
CATEGORIES OF BELONGING:
belonging in contemporary societies
belonging in placed-based learning
the digital context of participatory belonging
belonging and youth mental health
belonging during the COVID-19 lockdown/pandemic
FULL ALPHABETIC BIBLIOGRAPHY:
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Allen, K.A., Greenwood, C.J., Berger, E., Patmalazoglou, L., Reupert, A., Wurf, G., May, F., O’Connor, M., Sanson, A., Olsson, C., & Letcher, P. (2024). Adolescent school belonging and mental health outcomes in young adulthood: Findings from a multi-wave prospective cohort study. School Mental Health 16, 149–160. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-023-09626-6
Allen, K., Kern, M. L., Vella-Brodrick, D., Hattie, J., & Waters, L. (2018). What schools need to know about fostering school belonging: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 30(1), 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-016-9389-8
Antonsich, M. (2010). Searching for belonging: An analytical rramework. Geography Compass, 4(6), 644-659. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2009.00317.x
Archard, S.J. (2014). Feeling connected: A sense of belonging and social presence in an online community of learners. International Journal of Cyber Ethics in Education, 3(2), 16-28. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijcee.2014040102
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Baleria, G. (2019). Story sharing in a digital space to counter Othering and foster belonging and curiosity among college students. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 11(2), 56–78.
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