Belonging is one of those abstract concepts that seems to be something whose meaning we can all relatively easily grasp, but when we come to look at it more closely, actually appears to be much more slippery and elusive. Belonging itself is an objective fact about an individual’s membership of a group or community. A sense of belonging – that mysterious element that occupies us in this conversation – is that individual’s subjective relationship with the group or community to which they belong. So before we can measure or even examine someone’s sense of belonging, we must first ensure we know what we are talking about, and that that person shares that understanding. And what would we do with that measurement, anyway? A lack of sense of belonging is not an easy fix, and not something that everyone would want fixed, anyway; a sense of belonging is not obligatory, nor is its lack necessarily a problem. Why worry about it, then? Because the Venn diagram of sense of belonging and engagement has a large intersection, and therefore, in the eyes of this particular Venn, a problem worth solving.The resources we mentioned
Booth, W.C. (1995). The craft of research. The University of Chicago Press. NB 1st edition recommended - try World of Books!
Kaminski, R. (2025). The gift of not belonging: How outsiders thrive in a world of joiners. Scribe.
Chapters specifically mentioned by Ed from his book are those by:
Stacey Mottershaw, Rachael O'Connor, Nadine Cavigioli: A collaborative autoethnographic reflection on social class and student belonging in higher education
Kathleen Quinlan: Belonging and engagement in higher education literature
Ayoola Johnson: Seeking belonging in higher education
Terrell Strayhorn: Social engagement and students’ sense of belonging
Edward Venn, Karen Burland, Boroka Javor: Challenging dominant discourses
And the publication we talked about
Ahn, M.Y, Venn, E. and Lowe, T. (Eds.) (2025). Student Belonging in Higher Education: Perspectives and Practice. Routledge.
