Currently reading about relational pedagogy, belonging, and engagement
I love it when Christmas text messages from colleagues are recommendations for great papers, thanks, Rachel! :-D
Tag: belonging
Currently reading Hamshire et al. (2025) on moving on from belonging, to mattering and trust
While I have worked on student sense of belonging myself, I have also long been wondering if it is not much more complicated than that. Hamshire et al. (2025) write…
Listening to “teaching from the same side” on one of my favorite podcasts, Tea for Teaching
I am sitting on the ferry sailing towards Germany, with new-found appreciation of the Öresund bridge and its harp-style carrying cables… And I am listening to a conversation with Michelle…
Currently reading Meyerson & Scully (1995) on “Tempered radicalism and the politics of ambivalence and change”
I really had a hard time getting started with this article by Meyerson & Scully (1995) on “tempered radicalism and the politics of ambivalence and change“. They introduce that ““Tempered Radicals”…
Currently reading Hoan et al. (2025) on “With or Without You? People Feel Less Autonomous During Social Interactions, Except With Close Others”
This is quite an intriguing article! Feeling more related (more belonging?) might make us feel less autonomous (except with people we are super close with)? If, motivated by self-determination theory,…
Now published: Hammarlund et al. (2025) “Understanding student sense of belonging in introductory STEM courses”
In this article, we investigate sense of belonging of students in STEM courses at the University of Bergen, Norway. We find — as expected from studies in mostly a US…
Rethinking student belonging and well-being at universities
A couple of days ago, I attended the workshop “Rethinking student belonging and well-being at universities” (recording available here) organised by the Erasmus+ project BELONG. Here are some thoughts!
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…
Connections are everything! (Currently reading: Felten et al., 2023)
Just a quick post to recommend a book: “Connections Are Everything: A College Student’s Guide to Relationship-Rich Education” by Felten et al. (2023), which is available as a free e-book, so…
Planning a seminar on relationships in the classroom
In April, I will be teaching one afternoon in a course on “developing and leading courses at LTH”, on what we traditionally called “belonging”. Here are my thoughts so far.…
STEM students’ sense of belonging and test anxiety in in Bergen (quick summary of work with Emily M. Christiansen, Sehoya Cotner, Robin Costello, Sarah Hammarlund, & Madeline Kate Kiani)
In my series of things-I-want-to-say-in-an-upcoming-workshop-but-suspect-I-might-skip-to-make-time-for-participants’-topics, here is a quick summary of work I did with Emily M. Christiansen, Sehoya Cotner, Robin Costello, Sarah Hammarlund, & Madeline Kate Kiani on STEM…
Reading about a sense of belonging, and how it is more complicated than we might think
Belonging is a tricky concept and there is no consensus on how to measure it. And belonging can be in the university environment, in a course, in a discipline, with…
Currently investigating: “If I don’t trust my teachers, how can I learn then?” (with Peter Persson and Rachel Forsyth)
I am currently doing this super interesting research project on trust with my colleagues Peter Persson and Rachel Forsyth. Rachel and colleagues developed a model for “trust moves” that teachers employ,…
Just three emails to improve student grades and retention? Yes, please!
Sitting on the ferry back to Sweden, I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, “tea for teaching“. The episode was on the role of faculty engagement, specifically showing students that…
Currently reading: Relationship-rich education (Felten & Lambert, 2020)
I read the book “Relationship-rich education. How human connections drive success in college” by Felten & Lambert (2020) almost a year ago and found it super inspiring, but also very…
Reading Gin et al. (2021) on “how syllabi can serve as communication tools for creating inclusive classrooms”
This is mostly a “note to self”: Found a really interesting article on “how syllabi can serve as communication tools for creating inclusive classrooms” by Gun et al. (2021). A…
Fostering student sense of belonging in a large online class (after Lim, Atif, Farmer; 2022)
When we talk about fostering student sense of belonging, it is easiest to think about in-person interactions. However, a lot of our teaching these days is online, and in high-enrolment…
Reading about connections between theory and practice in teaching, metaphors for learning, and academically-supportive friendships
We recently ran a round-table discussion on “How to teach students who are not “mini-me”s (and don’t want to be)” at the Lund University Teaching and Learning conference last year,…
Currently reading Janke et al. (2017) on social identification with academia
After all the thinking about belonging I’ve done recently, I came across the article by Janke et al. (2017) today that measures “social identification with academia” as Venn-diagram with varying…
Currently reading Flett et al. (2022) on “anti-mattering”
As we are continuing working on our “sense of belonging” project at UiB (read more about my thoughts on students’ sense of belonging and what we can do about it here;…
Currently reading: JUTLP special issue on belonging in an anxious world (articles 1-7)
In response to my blog post about belonging, I was made aware of the current issue of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice (JUTLP) on “Pedagogies of belonging in…
Students’ sense of belonging, and what we can do about it
Last week, Sarah Hammarlund (of “Context Matters: How an Ecological-Belonging Intervention Can Reduce Inequities in STEM” by Hammarlund et al., 2022) gave a presentation here at LTH as part of…
Reducing bias and discrimination in teaching: an annotated, incomplete — WORK IN PROGRESS! — list of references
Already at the time of posting, I have added to my to-read list for an updated version of this post. Please let me know of any additional literature I should…
A personal story about why I am reluctant to start a class with an intervention
The first lecture I attended as a student wasn’t actually a regular lecture, even though I did not know that at the time. It was an intervention. Together with about…
