Thoughts on belonging, not-belonging, and teacher identity

The book Belonging and Identity in STEM Higher Education, edited by Howson & Kingsbury (2024) has been opened on my desktop literally since the day it was published. And in an attempt to manage work load while still reading most of what I want to read, I picked the two chapters that had the most interesting titles and I’m summarising those below.

The first chapter that spoke to me is “Is belonging always positive? Cultivating alternative and oppositional belonging at university” by Murray et al. (2024). The title is obviously a trick question, belonging is not always positive. Not everybody (feels like they) can belong, and some people actively do not want to belong. There are different types of belonging based on

• “social locations” – pretty much demographic data that might make someone be closer or less close to the norm
• “identifications and emotional attachments” – are the stories we tell ourselves and each other about who we are and who the others are
• “ethical and political values” – how we look at and interpret “social locations” to determine who is more or less like us

There are people that reject a dominant discourse on belonging and create an oppositional, alternative sense of belonging. And we should welcome and support that, rather than having the one acceptable sense of belonging that you either fit in, or you don’t, too bad for you.

The second chapter I really wanted to read is on “Higher education teachers’ identity development and sense of belonging” by Horsburgh (2024). Here, they distinguish between not belonging and not-yet belonging (with ultimately feeling a sense of belonging being the goal), and look at synergies and tensions between different professional identities (teacher, researcher, …), and how a professional identity as a teacher, and sense of belonging as educator in an institution, can be developed through participation in teacher training. For example, institutions can

• run faculty development initiatives, where a really important part is for teachers to connect with other teachers (and that is a feedback that I have often both given and gotten in many contexts, that this is an important part of any academic development workshop). Faculty development initiatives should be supported by senior leaders that stress the importance of participating in those initiatives, and show the alignment with institutional values.
• support formation of Communities of Practice and networks. Sometimes as easy as inviting people together for a coffee?
• offer formal qualifications and accreditation. Teachers often have unclear career pathways that seem less legitimate than researcher careers, so offering formal qualifications can help make that career path more attractive
• have a hard look at the organisational culture. If it is part of the institutional culture that e.g. clinical activities (or measurement campaigns on expensive equipment, or conference travel, …) may be prioritised over teaching, it is not surprising that teacher identity comes second to researcher identity. But two things could become part of organisational culture to make teaching more valued:
  • encouraging “job crafting” for when there is a misalignment between identity and work: Change tasks, prioritise some relationships over others, change how you think about your work. This promotes ownership of a professional identity
  • fixing the practicalities, e.g. office with name on door, webspace where people are being featured, career progression and recognition, teaching prizes (which can backfire!)
• allow for teacher agency: teachers need to be able to make decisions about their own professional practice.

All of these sound good and reasonable, and I am wondering how, considering the first article I summarise above, we can encourage diverse ways to feel belonging…

Murray, Ó. M., Chiu, Y. L. T., & Horsburgh, J. (2024). Is belonging always positive? Cultivating alternative and oppositional belonging at university. Belonging and Identity in STEM Higher Education, 57.

Horsburgh, J. (2024). Higher education teachers’ identity development and sense of belonging. Belonging and Identity in STEM Higher Education, 203.