tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/belonging-37497/articlesBelonging – The Conversation2023-07-31T19:59:54Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2106322023-07-31T19:59:54Z2023-07-31T19:59:54ZHelp to settle in and friendships beyond class: what makes students feel like they belong at uni<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540067/original/file-20230731-6515-zd7sfx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=98%2C73%2C8081%2C5383&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Belonging is about feeling accepted, included and valued. </p>
<p>If students feel like they belong at their university, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09633-6">research shows</a> it plays a crucial role in their overall wellbeing, self-esteem, and motivation to study.</p>
<p>As the Universities Accord <a href="https://www.education.gov.au/australian-universities-accord/resources/accord-interim-report">interim report</a> says, universities have an “obligation to students to foster belonging”. The draft report also notes “too few” Australians are completing university degrees, with completions of a first bachelor degree “at their lowest since 2014”.</p>
<p>Beyond ensuring campuses are <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-obviously-needs-to-be-done-how-to-make-australian-universities-safe-from-sexual-violence-210057">safe and inclusive places to study</a>, our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2023.2238006">new research</a> looks at what factors can predict a sense of belonging for students. </p>
<h2>What is happening to student belonging?</h2>
<p>The annual <a href="https://www.qilt.edu.au/surveys/student-experience-survey-(ses)">Student Experience Survey</a> tracks Australian students’ sense of belonging to their institution.</p>
<p>In 2022, only 46.5% of undergraduate students said they experienced a sense of belonging at university, and while this is slightly higher than 2021 (42.1%), it remains significantly lower than most other areas of student experience. For example, Australian students rated their overall university experience at 75.9%. </p>
<p>The pandemic and the move to more online teaching certainly <a href="https://doi.org/10.53761/1.18.4.2">had an impact</a> on belonging. But this issue pre-dates 2020 and is <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2015.1122585">not unique</a> to Australia.</p>
<p>It is important to reverse this trend. Feeling like they belong can help students overcome challenges and hardships and guard against <a href="https://researchrepository.rmit.edu.au/esploro/outputs/journalArticle/A-sense-of-belonging-Improving-student/9921862552801341">not completing</a> their degrees.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1684015959877595136"}"></div></p>
<h2>Our study</h2>
<p>Our research uses data from the <a href="https://www.qilt.edu.au/surveys/student-experience-survey-(ses)">Student Experience Survey</a> between 2013 and 2019. We looked at more than 1.1 million undergraduate and postgraduate students during this time. </p>
<p>We used <a href="https://www.ibm.com/topics/machine-learning">machine learning</a> – a form of artificial intelligence that uses data and algorithms to progressively improve its quality (just like Netflix’s ability to recommend movies based on previous viewing) – to ask what actually predicts student belonging? </p>
<p>Analysis of multiple variables from the national student experience survey suggested several causes and connections. </p>
<h2>Students want help to settle in</h2>
<p>Students want to know they are welcome at their university from the very start. Our research found support for settling in was an important predictor for belonging. </p>
<p>This can mean inductions, orientations and structured opportunities to meet people. This could look like peer mentoring programs and for international students, mobilising the help of ethnic and religious community organisations. </p>
<p>It is also important for universities to have places on campus for students to interact, as well as clubs and events. On top of this, university teaching staff can complete training in how to facilitate social connections between students. </p>
<p>Our study found ease and helpfulness of enrolment and administration systems were not as important to belonging when compared to human connections. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-job-ready-graduates-scheme-for-uni-fees-is-on-the-chopping-block-but-what-will-replace-it-209974">The Job-ready Graduates scheme for uni fees is on the chopping block – but what will replace it?</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<h2>Students need meaningful connections</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2023.2238006">Our research</a> also showed students wanted to interact with their peers. </p>
<p>But we found interactions outside of class were much more important than interaction in class. This might be because student connection opportunities in class may be poor, or they see on-campus socialising as easier without academic pressure.</p>
<p>The study found it was important for all students - domestic or international – to have interactions with local students. </p>
<p>Local students already know the important places, events and sub-cultures of an area. This may be as simple as where to get the best coffee or cheapest takeaway, but helps students feel like they belong in the community.</p>
<h2>Group work and belonging</h2>
<p>We found some interactions in class are important: our study suggests learning teamwork in class helped students feel like they belonged as it meant students were working together and interacting with their peers. </p>
<p>However, other skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, subject matter knowledge, and work readiness were far less important when it came to belonging.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Four students work at a desk with books and laptops." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540078/original/file-20230731-231213-cfre87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540078/original/file-20230731-231213-cfre87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540078/original/file-20230731-231213-cfre87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540078/original/file-20230731-231213-cfre87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540078/original/file-20230731-231213-cfre87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540078/original/file-20230731-231213-cfre87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540078/original/file-20230731-231213-cfre87.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Learning teamwork skills had a positive impact on belonging for students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Demographic indifference?</h2>
<p>Research says a student’s personal <a href="https://repository.uel.ac.uk/download/dc56b48c783cc329d81aef8b2390a4a8871b0fc19166434dc4bd98c8205bbebc/121028/Vol_4_Issue_1_Floya_Anthias.pdf">identity</a> is an important precursor to belonging. That is, we might belong more easily with those who share characteristics with us. </p>
<p>In our study we looked at students’ age, gender and enrolment type. </p>
<p>But we found these were less significant when it came to belonging. It mattered more if students were able to interact with other students.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uncapping-uni-places-for-indigenous-students-is-a-step-in-the-right-direction-but-we-must-do-much-more-208918">Uncapping uni places for Indigenous students is a step in the right direction, but we must do much more</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>While skills development and subject matter expertise are very important for academic outcomes, our research shows when it comes to belonging, students need authentic opportunities to settle into university life and make friends.</p>
<p>In its interim report, the Universities Accord does not look at the commencement or orientation process for students. </p>
<p>It’s final report in December should not miss the opportunity to boost belonging – and thus retention – by focusing on how campuses can include and involve students from the start of their studies. If they do, our research suggests this will have long-term benefits.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210632/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Crawford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Universities Accord draft report says universities have an ‘obligation to students to foster belonging’. It also notes ‘too few’ Australians are completing their degrees.Joseph Crawford, Senior Lecturer, Management, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2030802023-06-22T11:55:18Z2023-06-22T11:55:18Z‘We need to be acknowledged’: how Caribbean elders navigate belonging in the UK<p>We all belong somewhere. And wherever we are, people either see us as belonging, or they don’t. In the UK, this has been made only too clear in the last decade by the government’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/hostile-environment-the-uk-governments-draconian-immigration-policy-explained-95460">anti-migration policy</a>, known as the <a href="https://mappingimmigrationcontroversy.com/findings/">hostile environment</a>, instituted when Theresa May was Home Secretary between 2010 and 2016. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://mappingimmigrationcontroversy.com/findings/">controversial government stance</a> is underpinned by overt racism and hostility. It triggered the Windrush scandal, which, from 2017, saw people of retirement age – many of whom had lived as British people in the UK since early childhood – denied citizenship and residency rights, and the attendant healthcare, housing and wider social support. </p>
<p>The scandal is emblematic of what many Caribbean elders have faced throughout their lives in the UK – the discrimination and poor outcomes they have experienced in terms of employment, criminal justice, housing, education, health and social welfare. The question “Where are you from?”, an all-too-familiar and enduring trope, encapsulates a narrative of non-belonging.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528239/original/file-20230525-19-6vicuz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>This article is part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/windrush-75-139220?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Windrush75&utm_content=InArticleTop">Windrush 75 series</a>, which marks the 75th anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush arriving in Britain. The stories in this series explore the history and impact of the hundreds of passengers who disembarked to help rebuild after the second world war.</em></p>
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<h2>Spending time together</h2>
<p>We derive <a href="https://sk.sagepub.com/books/globalization-and-belonging">our sense of belonging</a> from being recognised and accepted as being connected with – rightly placed in – a specific <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a41364">environment</a>. Irrespective of dominant narratives to the contrary, people and communities in Britain have always found ways to foster connection and belonging.</p>
<p>For the last decade I have explored ideas of place-making and community-based knowledge through studies with older people of Caribbean descent in Britain. I have captured the ways they have found to belong in a place in which many have lived for decades, and in which they will die. I have found that, in migrant and diasporic communities, in particular, belonging is fostered in what sociologists term the “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/1467-954X.12432">microsocial</a>”: the everyday practices and rituals, as well as in the spaces people claim for themselves. </p>
<p>For older church-going women who arrived in the UK during the Windrush era, <a href="https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/235683/The_Voices_of_African_Caribbean_and_Bla.pdf">luncheon clubs</a> often played an important role in their lives. As Mrs Faith, a woman in her early 70s, told me during an interview in 2011:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We used to meet regularly, and it was nice … we had lunch, usually had a guest speaker and then just spent time with each other. It’s how we take care of each other – and, where we come from, taking care of each other is what we had to do.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For her, the club not only created bonds between members but was also a caring, diasporic space. Participants came to find a sense of kinship and connection in shared values and “ways of knowing”, drawn from their countries of birth. </p>
<p><a href="https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/publications/representing-a-sense-of-place-for-social-and-health-related-polic">Domino clubs</a> elicited similar sentiments. One that I visited was established over 30 years ago. Members meet twice a week to play dominoes. They also take part in the annual tournament with five or six other small clubs from around the country. One 71-year-old member said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s time for us … we take over here … some people come to play dominoes and are serious about it; others come to have a laugh and a talk … to make sure we are all right. That’s what it all about. We can relax, talk about old times and back home … and check on each other.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Ladies are seated in a row." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528574/original/file-20230526-27-m9kgkc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528574/original/file-20230526-27-m9kgkc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528574/original/file-20230526-27-m9kgkc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528574/original/file-20230526-27-m9kgkc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528574/original/file-20230526-27-m9kgkc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528574/original/file-20230526-27-m9kgkc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528574/original/file-20230526-27-m9kgkc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The African-Caribbean Elder Sisters in Cardiff take part in a workshop.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roiyah Saltus</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Carving out one’s own space</h2>
<p>Togetherness is not the only route to belonging. <a href="https://twilightleisure.wordpress.com/2021/02/08/on-land-life-and-be-longing-mr-bridgeman/">In another study</a>, I looked at the leisure activities of Caribbean people over 85 years of age. One man I spoke to, Mr Bridgeman, was born on a small holding in Barbados 90 years ago. He remains connected to the land – albeit land meted out by his local council in the UK – through an allotment, to which he has tended, daily, for nearly half a century. </p>
<p>When I checked on Mr Bridgeman during the pandemic he was continuing with his daily routine, drawing on the old ways. His allotment remained his refuge, a place in which to grow vegetables like he did as a boy – and, importantly, to just “be”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two old men embrace." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528611/original/file-20230526-15-qomsmx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528611/original/file-20230526-15-qomsmx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528611/original/file-20230526-15-qomsmx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528611/original/file-20230526-15-qomsmx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528611/original/file-20230526-15-qomsmx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528611/original/file-20230526-15-qomsmx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528611/original/file-20230526-15-qomsmx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘We can relax, talk about back home and check on each other.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roiyah Saltus</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I have found that these elders very seldom rage against injustice. There has been, in the main, a quiet resistance to generational hostility and to being made to feel like they did not belong. </p>
<p>The strongest response I have received was from a Mrs Jeffers who, in answer to a question on the importance of conducting research rooted in the lives of her generation, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Older people from the Caribbean need to be asked. We have played a valuable role in the development of British society and our views and experiences should be sought; we need to be acknowledged, respected and accepted.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The pandemic has <a href="https://twilightleisure.wordpress.com/2020/05/23/one-making-connections-with-the-old-ways-in-the-time-of-covid-19/">taken its toll</a>. Of the many spaces frequented by the Caribbean elders with whom I have spent the last decade, the luncheon club no longer exists, the domino club has lost significant members and Mr Bridgeman cannot get to his allotment as often as he once did. </p>
<p>Sociologists including the US writer <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Feminist-Theory-From-Margin-to-Center/hooks/p/book/9781138821668">bell hooks</a> have called for the need for “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26758837?seq=2">epistemic levelling</a>”. The idea is that in order for social policy and service delivery to be effective, it needs to be grounded not in the theoretical but in the parochial – in the knowledge that emerges from people’s everyday lives. This is especially the case for racialised communities, whose own knowledge production is so often ignored.</p>
<p>Many of the elders I have worked with are nearing the final chapters of their lives in the UK. Understanding both the strategies they have put in place to carve out their own spaces and sense of connectivity, and the very real fears they have too, remains pressing. We need to amplify their voices, and pay attention to what they have to say.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>You can <em><a href="https://bit.ly/43SBm9d">download the e-book here</a></em>. Thank you for your interest.</p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/203080/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roiyah Saltus is a Professor of Sociology at the University of South Wales). Her studies referred to in this article were funded by the Welsh Government, AHRC, and by the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling (University of South Wales)</span></em></p>People’s sense of belonging is fostered in everyday social practices and in the spaces they claim for themselves. Our elders need be acknowledged, respected and accepted.Roiyah Saltus, Professor of Sociology, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1951982022-11-24T06:13:25Z2022-11-24T06:13:25ZInflation, COVID, inequality: new report shows Australia’s social cohesion is at crossroads<p>Back in 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, social cohesion in Australia remarkably increased, reflecting the ability of our communities to unite and pull through disaster.</p>
<p>But Australia’s social cohesion has begun to decline in 2022 amid a range of challenges including economic and cost of living pressures, global tensions such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the lingering effects of the pandemic.</p>
<p>This is the key finding of the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute’s 2022 <a href="https://scanloninstitute.org.au/research/mapping-social-cohesion">Mapping Social Cohesion report</a> released this week.</p>
<h2>What’s the report?</h2>
<p>The report outlines the findings of the annual, nationally representative Mapping Social Cohesion survey. Now in its 16th year, the survey is a living public record of who we are in Australia and how we connect with each other.</p>
<p>Social cohesion reflects the harmony, connectedness and cooperation of society. In the Mapping Social Cohesion study, we measure cohesion by people’s</p>
<ul>
<li>sense of belonging in Australia</li>
<li>sense of personal and financial worth</li>
<li>sense of social inclusion and justice in society (including their trust in government)</li>
<li>participation in their communities</li>
<li>acceptance of diversity and differences.</li>
</ul>
<p>The 2022 survey was conducted in July this year. It surveyed almost 5,800 people, asking more than 90 questions devoted to social cohesion and related attitudes, perceptions and behaviours. This makes it the largest survey in the Mapping Social Cohesion series since 2007.</p>
<p>The spike in cohesion during the first year of the pandemic likely reflects the way Australians came together during the pandemic and responded positively to government efforts to protect our health and wellbeing.</p>
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<p>During the height of the pandemic in 2020, Australians <a href="https://scanloninstitute.org.au/sites/default/files/2021-02/SC2020%20Report%20Final.pdf">reported</a> higher levels of national pride and belonging, trust in government, greater social inclusion and social justice, and increased acceptance of people from different backgrounds. Researchers often find that people pull together through <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-08188-001?doi=1">crises</a> – though it’s striking this occurred in Australia despite global divisions and protests during COVID. </p>
<p>As the community and government response to the pandemic has been scaled back, it’s not especially surprising that the level of cohesion has also waned. That may signal a return to a pre-pandemic normal, and that wouldn’t be a terrible thing – historically, Australian society has reported high social cohesion.</p>
<h2>Growing threats</h2>
<p>However, our results suggest social cohesion could fall below pre-pandemic normal in the coming years. A declining sense of national belonging and economic fairness in Australia are warning signs of the risks to cohesion.</p>
<p>Indeed national pride, belonging, and the sense of social justice in Australia are all now declining and lower than they were before the pandemic.</p>
<p>The proportion of people saying they have a great sense of belonging in Australia declined from 77% in 2007 to 52% in 2022. Meanwhile, 81% of people in 2022 agree the gap in incomes between rich and poor is too large.</p>
<p>Social and economic inequalities are major drags on national-level cohesion. Those who express a much weaker sense of social cohesion than others include young adults, people who are struggling financially, and people who experience discrimination.</p>
<p>People who report financial struggles, in particular, report a much lower sense of belonging, happiness and economic fairness in Australia. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-most-important-issue-facing-australia-new-survey-sees-huge-spike-in-concern-over-climate-change-127688">The most important issue facing Australia? New survey sees huge spike in concern over climate change</a>
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<h2>What about our strengths?</h2>
<p>On the positive side, support for multiculturalism and ethnic diversity continues to grow, and is likely to be a valuable asset to our social cohesion in future. </p>
<p>Almost 90% of people in 2022 think multiculturalism has been good for Australia, while about 80% believe that a diverse immigrant intake has made Australia stronger. Australians are also more likely than in the past to think that immigrants are good for Australian society, culture and the economy. </p>
<p>Across all these indicators, positive attitudes to multiculturalism and diversity has increased in recent years. While support for multiculturalism has traditionally been strong among younger adults, the strongest increase in support since 2018 has been among older Australians. </p>
<p>Australians’ sense of belonging and cohesion in their local neighbourhoods also remains high and growing, helping us to remain connected through challenging times.</p>
<p>The proportion of people who believe their neighbours from different backgrounds get on well together increased from 76% in 2018 to 84% in 2020 and has remained at that high level in 2022 (83%). This raises the key question of how we can draw on the strengths of our neighbourhoods to improve national cohesion.</p>
<p>There remains a great opportunity to learn from what was done well during the pandemic – and what was done poorly – to address the decline in social cohesion. The evidence points to the need for community and government efforts to address social and economic inequalities that drag down overall cohesion.</p>
<p>Our neighbourhood connections and our support for multiculturalism and diversity can be powerful assets in helping to connect people within and across local communities. </p>
<p>Recent experience suggests that through such efforts, we can imagine an ever stronger and cohesive Australia in coming years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James O'Donnell receives funding from Scanlon Foundation Research Institute. </span></em></p>But on the positive side, support for multiculturalism and ethnic diversity continues to grow and is likely to be a valuable asset to our social cohesion in future.James O'Donnell, Lecturer, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1918402022-10-31T12:33:17Z2022-10-31T12:33:17ZFrom atheist churches to finding healing in the ‘sacred flower of cannabis,’ spiritual but not religious Americans are finding new ways of pursuing meaning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/491982/original/file-20221026-18679-kx131x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C512%2C341&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The interior of the International Church of Cannabis in Denver, Colorado.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/international-church-of-cannabis">International Church of Cannabis Denver, Colorado</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/modeling-the-future-of-religion-in-america/#fn-38123-1">recent Pew Center report</a>, American Christianity remains in a nearly <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christianity-us-shrinking-pew-research/">three-decade decline</a>. Responding as “none” or “unaffiliated” on religious surveys, people increasingly identify as humanists, atheists, agnostics, or simply spiritual. If current trends continue, by 2070 Christianity may no longer be the dominant expression of American religion. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://people.cal.msu.edu/shiple18/">scholar who studies alternative spirituality and new religious movements</a> in the United States, I believe the reality of America’s diverse religious and spiritual landscape is more complex than often presented. </p>
<p>The nones – or those claiming no particular religious affiliation – range from atheists to individuals searching for spiritual answers <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/10617">outside traditional religious groups</a>. This last group commonly identifies as spiritual but not religious – or SBNR. Dissatisfied with traditional religion, these individuals think about spirituality in a more secular way, as representing their pursuit of meaning, healing, purpose and belonging.</p>
<h2>The many expressions of spirituality</h2>
<p>In her <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931002.001.0001">study of multiple SBNR identities</a>, theologian <a href="https://www.healthybeliefs.org/meet-dr-linda-mercadante/">Linda Mercadante</a> found that the turn away from organized religion does not necessarily come at the expense of faith, ritual or practice. For “post-Christianity” seekers, Mercadante stresses how spiritual fulfillment moves from “religious and civic institutions to ‘gathering places.’”</p>
<p>Such “gathering places” range widely. </p>
<p>Many turn to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/peace-love-yoga-9780190888633?cc=us&lang=en&">practices appropriated</a> from different religious contexts. <a href="https://thensrn.org/2020/02/26/is-mindfulness-a-religion-for-unbelievers/">Mindfulness</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190888626.001.0001">yoga</a>, in particular, have emerged as popular alternatives for seeking spiritual, psychological and physical healing. </p>
<p>These practices point to the growing connection between spirituality and health. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3109%2F10826084.2013.808540">Twelve-step meetings</a> for addiction recovery and <a href="https://bioethics.hms.harvard.edu/journal/spirituality-medicine">contemporary medicine</a>, for example, stress the need to balance spirit and body for wellness.</p>
<p>Several <a href="https://crossroadpublishing.com/product/spirituality-and-the-secular-quest/">nonreligious practices</a> create opportunities to explore spirituality beyond religious affiliation. People find a sense of belonging through the internet and social media. Others turn to self-help literature or elements of popular culture. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.149">Sports</a> similarly provide an <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-sport-is-a-spiritual-experience-and-failure-can-help-65871">avenue for spiritual renewal</a>. The rituals of training, competing and camaraderie reflect the spiritual quest for personal growth and locating community. Digital communities and online options likewise afford new modes for spiritual practice and connection. </p>
<p>Accordingly, some scholars, such as religious studies professor <a href="https://www.bradley.edu/academic/departments/phlrs/faculty/profile.dot?id=172384">Robert Fuller</a>, have stressed the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/spiritual-but-not-religious-9780195146806?cc=us&lang=en&">“unchurched” nature of the SBNR</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, the continued desire to find meaning and connection has led to the development of secular, spiritual and atheist churches. Although almost universally understood as physical spaces for religious practice, the rise of nonreligious churches demonstrate the benefits and shared opportunities many nones and SBNR people associate with the experience of “going to church.” </p>
<h2>Secular and atheist churches</h2>
<p>Emerging over the past decade, and although still small in scale, secular and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqFJEzsffnE">atheist churches</a> indicate how changes in religious affiliation do not <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/10/atheist-mega-churches/3489967/">necessarily include a rejection of the communal structures</a> that provide avenues for spiritual rejuvenation.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Atheist churches that include secular rituals have been showing an increase.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The <a href="https://seattleatheist.church/">Seattle Atheist Church</a>, for example, <a href="https://seattleatheist.church/mission/">positions itself</a> as “a place where atheists come together” to address big questions and “celebrate meaningful life events with atheist rituals.” Founded in 2015, the church offers weekly Sunday meetings for a couple dozen participants who share in leading sermons in relation to their commitment to <a href="https://secularhumanism.org/what-is-secular-humanism/">secular humanism</a>, a nonreligious worldview that rejects belief in the supernatural.</p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://www.sundayassemblydetroit.org/">Sunday Assembly Detroit</a> seeks to “help everyone live life as fully as possible.” One of 70 chapters spread across eight different countries, the Sunday Assembly was founded by comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans in 2013. Their motto was “Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More.”</p>
<p>Others find refuge in secularized churches that combine alternative rituals, such as the use of cannabis, with various humanist, ethical and spiritual orientations.</p>
<p>Identifying as Elevationists, <a href="https://elevationists.org/">members of the International Church of Cannabis</a> in Denver, Colorado, for example, come together through the ritual sharing of cannabis, or what they call “the sacred flower.” </p>
<p>This sharing, they say, helps them “reveal the best version of self.” It also aids in discovering “a creative voice” that can can help enrich the community “with the fruits of that creativity.” These “fruits” often manifest as charitable projects, including street cleaning and an outreach initiative to feed and clothe Denver’s homeless population.</p>
<p>Such an approach does not deny members who might still hold religious beliefs, but focuses attention away from the supernatural toward self-improvement. Similarly, members of the nondenominational <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FCCoLaR/">First Church of Logic and Reason</a>, based in Lansing, Michigan, elevate cannabis as a spiritual and therapeutic element. The church’s ritual use of cannabis offers a way to heal and find a sense of belonging for those disenchanted with traditional religion. </p>
<p>Additionally, digital opportunities <a href="https://sacredmattersmagazine.com/from-the-madness-of-reefer-to-the-ecstatic-bliss-of-marijuana-the-rise-of-cannabis-churches/">have emerged as a vital site</a> for cultivating spirituality.</p>
<h2>Digital spirituality</h2>
<p>For those disillusioned with traditional religion, <a href="https://laverne.edu/chaplain/apps-for-spiritual-wellbeing/">digital technologies, apps, and online options</a> offer new avenues to engage with secular and alternative forms of spiritual practice. </p>
<p>Current apps can calculate one’s <a href="https://chart.chaninicholas.com/">astrological chart</a> or provide <a href="https://www.evatarot.net/">online tarot readings</a>. Social media platforms – particularly <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/discover/spirituality?lang=en">TikTok</a> – make a host of New Age practices, including <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/discover/healing-crystal?lang=en">crystal healing</a>, immediately available. <a href="https://www.allure.com/story/does-reiki-therapy-tiktok-work">Reiki</a> finds a <a href="https://paritashahhealing.com/distant-reiki/">robust community</a> of <a href="https://www.nycreikicenter.com/treatments/virtual-reiki-treatments/">virtual practitioners</a>, and <a href="https://www.mindful.org/free-mindfulness-apps-worthy-of-your-attention/">mindfulness</a> can be cultivated across a host of <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/best-meditation-apps-4767322">meditation apps</a>. </p>
<p>Shifts away from traditional religious membership doesn’t simply mean Americans are rejecting religion. Rather, they are exploring an ever-evolving spectrum of spirituality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191840/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morgan Shipley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>America’s religious landscape is getting more diverse as people find new ways of expressing spirituality.Morgan Shipley, Foglio Endowed Chair of Spirituality & Associate Chair of Religious Studies, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1899672022-09-09T12:35:13Z2022-09-09T12:35:13ZBurning Man highlights the primordial human need for ritual<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483358/original/file-20220907-21-nu016z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C27%2C2243%2C1382&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A wooden effigy of a man is erected each year in Nevada's Black Rock Desert and later burned down.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BURNINGMAN/4d7f415d472341eda463d01751cda34a/photo?Query=burning%20man%20festival%20nevada&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=100&currentItemNo=44">AP Photo/Ron Lewis</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the end of each summer, <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/burning-man-2022-fashion-photos-17421401.php">hordes of people flock to the Black Rock Desert</a> in Nevada to erect a makeshift city the size of the Italian town of Pisa. They call it Black Rock City. A few days later, they will burn it to the ground, leaving no trace. </p>
<p>During their time together, they partake in an extravaganza of unique experiences. Wearing wild costumes and riding carnivalesque vehicles, they attend colorful parades, spectacular light displays and interactive art installations.</p>
<p>Since its inception in 1986, attendance has increased from a few dozens of individuals to over 70,000 — and hundreds of thousands in various <a href="https://regionals.burningman.org/official-events/">regional versions</a> around the world.</p>
<p>In surveys, Burners, as they call themselves, report experiencing strong feelings of connection during the event. Over three-quarters say that their experience was transformative, over 90% say that these transformative effects lasted beyond their stay, and over 80% say that they made a permanent impact on their lives. The great majority <a href="http://blackrockcitycensus.org/sociodemo.html#burnsattended">return again</a>, many of them every year.</p>
<p>What makes this bizarre event so meaningful to so many people? </p>
<h2>The ceremonial experience</h2>
<p>The overwhelming majority of Burners <a href="http://blackrockcitycensus.org/sociodemo2.html#religion">identify as nonreligious</a>, yet the deeply spiritual experiences they report resemble those of religious groups. Indeed, the similarities with religion are no accident.</p>
<p>Burning Man, as the event became known, started as a <a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2021/06/opinion/serious-stuff/solstice-2021/">solstice get-together</a> by a handful of friends on Baker Beach in San Francisco. In 1986, they decided to build a wooden effigy and then torch it. Co-founder Larry Harvey called this a “spontaneous act of radical self-expression.” As people started gathering to watch, they realized they had created a ritual. The next year, they put up fliers and drew a bigger crowd. It has been growing ever since.</p>
<p>Harvey was an avid reader of anthropological theories of religion. He was particularly interested in the role of ritual in creating meaningful experiences. These experiences, he argued, address a <a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2016/12/black-rock-city/participate-in-brc/burning-man-2017-radical-ritual/">primordial human need</a>: “The desire to belong to a place, to belong to a time, to belong to one another, and to belong to something that is greater than ourselves, even in the midst of impermanence.”</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.xygalatas.com">anthropologist of ritual</a> myself, I can see that ceremony is at the essence of Burning Man. It begins as soon as Burners walk through the gate. Upon entering, people signal their arrival by ringing a bell. They hug and greet each other by saying “Welcome home!” That home is treated as sacred, symbolically demarcated and protected from the polluting influence of the “default world,” as they call the outside. Upon their departure, they will perform a purification rite, removing all “matter out of place” – anything that doesn’t belong to the desert, from plastic bottles to specs of glitter.</p>
<p>Leaving their default name behind them, they use their “playa name.” It is a name gifted to them by another Burner and used to signify their new identity in the playa (the desert basin). They also abandon many of the comforts of the outside world. Monetary transactions are not allowed, and neither is bartering. Instead, they practice a gift economy, modeled on traditional ceremonial customs.</p>
<p>Anthropologists have noted that such ceremonial exchange systems can have important <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-point-of-holiday-gifts-173306">social utility</a>. Unlike economic exchanges that produce equivalent outcomes, each act of donation creates feelings of gratitude, obligation and community, increasing both personal satisfaction and social solidarity.</p>
<p>The Burning Man Temple is yet another testament to the power of ritual. When sculptor David Best was invited to build an installation in 2000, he erected a wooden structure without any use in mind. But when a crew member died in a motorcycle accident, visitors started bringing mementos of people they had lost, and later gathered to watch it burn at the end of the event. </p>
<p>Since then, the temple has become a symbol of mourning and resilience. </p>
<p>Its walls are covered with thousands of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhceCbEo0Lg">notes, photographs and memorabilia</a>. They are reminders of things people wish to leave behind: a personal loss, a divorce, an abusive relationship. It is all consumed by the fire on the final night as onlookers gather to watch silently, many of them in tears. Such a simple symbolic act seems to have surprisingly powerful cathartic effects.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The sky is colored a bright orange as massive flames leap out while people watch." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483359/original/file-20220907-21-7wrtjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483359/original/file-20220907-21-7wrtjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483359/original/file-20220907-21-7wrtjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483359/original/file-20220907-21-7wrtjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483359/original/file-20220907-21-7wrtjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483359/original/file-20220907-21-7wrtjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483359/original/file-20220907-21-7wrtjg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2006 installation, which was called ‘Temple of Hope,’ is set on fire at Nevada’s Black Rock Desert.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BURNINGMAN/9569027e0e3c4a79a66436cab1d3941c/photo?Query=burning%20man%20festival%20nevada&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=100&currentItemNo=93">AP Photo/Ron Lewis</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The weeklong event culminates with the ceremonial destruction of the two largest structures looming at the center of the ephemeral city. On the penultimate night, a wooden effigy known as “the Man” is reduced to ashes. And in the final act, everyone gathers to watch the burning of the temple. </p>
<h2>The human thirst for ritual</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/">oldest known ceremonial structures</a>, such as Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, predate agriculture and permanent settlement. Although they took enormous effort to build, they too, like Black Rock City, were only used by ephemeral communities: groups of hunter-gatherers who traveled long distances to visit them.</p>
<p>It is not until hundreds of years later that evidence of settlement in those areas was found. This led archaeologist Klaus Schmidt to propose that it was <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/gobeki-tepe">the thirst for ritual</a> that led those hunter-gatherers to permanent settlement, paving the way for civilization.</p>
<p>Whether this radical hypothesis is historically true is hard to know. But phenomena like Burning Man could confirm the view that the human need for ritual is primeval. It both <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/dimitris-xygalatas/ritual/9780316462402/">predates and extends beyond organized religion</a>.</p>
<p>Burning Man defies a strict definition. When I asked Burners to describe it, they used term such as movement, community, pilgrimage or social experiment. Whatever it might be, Burning Man’s unprecedented success, I believe, is due to its ability to create meaningful experiences for its members, which reflect a greater human yearning for spirituality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189967/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dimitris Xygalatas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Nevada, people create a makeshift city toward the end of summer and later burn it down. What’s behind this event, and what makes it meaningful?Dimitris Xygalatas, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Psychological Sciences, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1757312022-05-06T12:33:11Z2022-05-06T12:33:11Z3 ways to make ‘belonging’ more than a buzzword in higher ed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461298/original/file-20220504-17-jluvkj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C17%2C5967%2C3960&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Belonging is a key to college student success. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/diverse-group-of-college-students-on-campus-royalty-free-image/1340306710?adppopup=true">RichLegg/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Belonging” is trending.</p>
<p>You can see it in <a href="https://blog.ongig.com/job-titles/diversity-titles/">evolving executive titles</a>, such as “vice president of global diversity, inclusion and belonging.”</p>
<p>You can find it in reports about <a href="https://www.talentinnovation.org/_private/assets/PowerOfBelonging_KeyFindings-CTI.pdf">how to make employees feel they’re a more essential part of the workplace</a>. For instance, a 2021 report about trends in the workplace found that belonging is a <a href="https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/workplace-belonging-books/">key factor</a> for how companies keep employees engaged. And it can be seen in new <a href="https://about.google/belonging/">“belonging” initiatives</a> and strategies to create an “<a href="https://news.linkedin.com/2021/october/2021-workforce-diversity-report">environment of belonging</a>” and develop more inclusive environments across organizations of all sorts.</p>
<p>But what about on a college campus? Does the recent increased interest in belonging help students? Might it carry unintended consequences?</p>
<p>As a researcher who concentrates on <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2ksPo4cAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">factors that influence belonging among college students</a>, I have decided to probe more deeply into the recent focus on belonging and its relationship to how college students fare. In my research, I define belonging as a concept of people’s connectedness and mattering at the organizations or institutions where they work, study or are otherwise involved. </p>
<p>Will this emphasis on belonging actually enhance students’ well-being and ultimately help them succeed? Or is it just being used as a feel-good buzzword that is meant to appease recent demands for greater inclusion?</p>
<h2>A crucial need</h2>
<p>There’s no shortage of research that has identified <a href="https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0033-2909.117.3.497">belonging as a critical need for human beings</a>, especially for college students.</p>
<p>Studies have found that belonging is <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315297293/college-students-sense-belonging-terrell-strayhorn">a key to college student success</a>. Belonging is associated with students <a href="https://doi.org/10.2190/DRYC-CXQ9-JQ8V-HT4V">not dropping out of school</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3200/JEXE.76.4.343-362">psychologically adjusting</a> to college, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3200/JEXE.75.3.203-220">academic achievement</a>. Belonging is especially important for <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2673270">students of color</a> who attend institutions that were not designed with them in mind.</p>
<p>While most research about belonging on campus has focused on how students interact with other people, my own research has examined how campus spaces – such as residence halls and classrooms – <a href="https://www.scup.org/resource/how-can-residence-hall-spaces-facilitate-student-belonging/">can enhance student belonging</a>. I’ve found that the design of campus spaces can increase the frequency of interactions among students. If those interactions are positive, they can then lead to belonging. I’ve also found that where students go on campus – or don’t go, for that matter – says a lot about when and with whom they experience belonging.</p>
<p>I don’t question that belonging on campus is an important consideration. Rather, I’m suggesting that people question generally accepted ways of talking about belonging. Here are three alternative ways to think about the matter.</p>
<h2>1. Belonging is an ongoing process</h2>
<p>Phrases such as <a href="https://nsse.indiana.edu/research/annual-results/belonging-story/index.html">“sense of belonging”</a> are commonly used in discussions about belonging. This language suggests that belonging is a feeling or a state of being, but it’s actually more than that.</p>
<p>Even how belonging is measured can perpetuate a view that one’s belonging remains constant and consistent, overlooking the fact that “belonging” can actually <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11162-007-9052-9">fluctuate over time</a>. Belonging among college students often is measured through surveys, but surveys are only snapshots.</p>
<p>Beyond shifts in belonging at different times, students may also <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1086482218785887">experience belonging differently</a> in different places and with different people. For example, I found that students at one university identified the dining hall as a key site to connect with their friends. It was a space that represented their belonging. However, for other students, the same dining hall was a stressful place. For these students, it was a space that made them feel isolated.</p>
<p>Instead of viewing belonging as a feeling or a sense, consider how belonging is an ongoing process. In my 2016 study of college student belonging, I found that when students’ expectations for their academic and social lives did not match what they encountered during college, they indicated <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2016.0016">lower belonging academically and socially</a>. To change that, students would seek out different places on campus and rethink their own views of themselves. They would also form new student groups and seek places on campus for those groups and people with similar interests to meet.</p>
<p>The takeaway is that even if someone doesn’t belong at first, it doesn’t mean they won’t belong in the future.</p>
<h2>2. Belonging takes effort</h2>
<p>When belonging is seen as fitting in, it’s easy for people to assume that individuals can fit or even want to fit. It’s also easy to make assumptions about who belongs where or with whom. This view can lead to expectations about what conditions promote belonging, such as being around people who are alike.</p>
<p>However, being around people who are seen as being alike isn’t always associated with belonging.</p>
<p>In a study on belonging <a href="https://naspaapikc.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/how-do-we-know-if-asian-american-students-feel-like-they-belong-on-our-campuses-by-michelle-samura-ph-d-chapman-university/">at a multicampus university system</a>, I found that Asian American students at a university where they were relatively few in number reported higher levels of belonging than did Asian American students at campuses with much larger Asian American student populations. Findings indicated that student belonging may not require being around people from the same racial or ethnic group. Belonging can occur among difference. So it’s useful for colleges to question people’s thinking about who belongs with whom. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461303/original/file-20220504-17-kpf5n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A student plays the guitar on the steps of a building while his friends listen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461303/original/file-20220504-17-kpf5n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461303/original/file-20220504-17-kpf5n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461303/original/file-20220504-17-kpf5n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461303/original/file-20220504-17-kpf5n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461303/original/file-20220504-17-kpf5n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461303/original/file-20220504-17-kpf5n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461303/original/file-20220504-17-kpf5n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Belonging requires ongoing effort and commitment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/university-student-friends-sitting-on-the-steps-of-royalty-free-image/1332167109?adppopup=true">Mayur Kakade/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The study’s findings also revealed that Asian American students actively sought out spaces and groups with whom they shared similar interests or felt like they could relate, such as a speech and debate club, cultural organizations, and the recreation center for pickup basketball.</p>
<p>In these cases, belonging didn’t just occur by itself. Students had to deliberately seek it out.</p>
<h2>3. Belonging is a shared responsibility</h2>
<p>People may view belonging as a personal matter – something experienced at an individual level that is an individual’s responsibility. But it also requires ongoing effort by organizations and institutions. </p>
<p>Colleges and universities can <a href="https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/1111/">change their structures and systems to support belonging and inclusion</a>. This can include giving attention to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/90007870?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">differences between what colleges display in marketing materials</a> and the reality of what students experience on campus. </p>
<p>In my experience, belonging is often thought of as condition that does not change and depends on the actions of an individual student. What I’ve found through my research, however, is belonging on campus takes ongoing effort – not only by students, but the colleges they attend as well. By thinking about belonging in these different ways, the kinds of change needed for greater student belonging may actually happen.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Samura does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Just what does it mean for students to feel as if they “belong” on campus? A researcher weighs in.Michelle Samura, Associate Professor of Education and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education & External Affairs, Chapman UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1716072021-11-22T01:51:46Z2021-11-22T01:51:46ZStress is a health hazard. But a supportive circle of friends can help undo the damaging effects on your DNA<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432764/original/file-20211118-27-1rf4yck.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5991%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Stress affects <a href="https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/stress/related/stress-statistics/">up to 90% of people</a>, and we know it harms our mental and physical well-being. </p>
<p>Stress can impact the activity and function of our genes. It does this via “epigenetic” changes, which turn on and off certain genes, though it doesn’t change the DNA code.</p>
<p>But why do some people respond worse to stress, while others seem to cope under pressure?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2729718/">Previous</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/088394179290028H?via%3Dihub">research</a> has identified having strong social support and a sense of belonging are robust indicators of physical and mental health.</p>
<p>Social support means having a network you can turn to in times of need. This can come from natural sources such as family, friends, partners, pets, co-workers and community groups. Or from formal sources such as mental health specialists.</p>
<p>My new study, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.11.026">published today in the Journal of Psychiatric Research</a>, shows for the first time that these positive effects are also observed on human genes.</p>
<p>Having supportive social structures buffers and even reverses some of the harmful effects of stress on our genes and health, via the process of epigenetics. </p>
<p>The findings suggest the DNA we are born with is not necessarily our destiny.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-chronic-stress-changes-the-brain-and-what-you-can-do-to-reverse-the-damage-133194">How chronic stress changes the brain – and what you can do to reverse the damage</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is epigenetics?</h2>
<p>Our genes and our environment contribute to our health.</p>
<p>We inherit our DNA code from our parents, and this doesn’t change during our life. Genetics is the study of how the DNA code acts as a risk or protective factor for a particular trait or disease.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.science.org.au/curious/epigenetics">Epigenetics</a> is an additional layer of instructions on top of DNA that determines how they affect the body. This layer can chemically modify the DNA, without changing DNA code.</p>
<p>The term epigenetics is derived from the Greek word “epi” which means “over, on top of”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-epigenetics-13877">Explainer: what is epigenetics?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This extra layer of information lies on top of the genes and surrounding DNA. It acts like a switch, turning genes on or off, which can also impact our health.</p>
<p>Epigenetic changes occur throughout our lives due to different environmental factors such as stress, exercise, diet, alcohol, and drugs.</p>
<p>For instance, chronic stress can impact our genes via epigenetic changes that in turn can <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/acps.12778">increase the rate of mental health disorders</a> such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety.</p>
<p>New technologies now allow researchers to collect a biological sample from a person (such as blood or saliva) and measure epigenetics to better understand how our genes respond to different environments.</p>
<p>Measuring epigenetics at different times allows us to gain insight into which genes are altered because of a particular environment.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/extreme-stress-in-childhood-is-toxic-to-your-dna-99009">Extreme stress in childhood is toxic to your DNA</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What did we study?</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.11.026">My study</a> investigated both positive and negative factors that drive a person’s response to stress and how this changes the epigenetic profiles of genes.</p>
<p>Certain groups of people are more likely to face stress as a part of their routine work, such as emergency responders, medical workers and police officers. </p>
<p>So, my research team and I recruited 40 Australian first year paramedical students at two points in time – before and after exposure to a potentially stressful event. The students provided saliva samples for DNA and filled out questionnaires detailing their lifestyle and health at both points in time.</p>
<p>We investigated epigenetic changes before and after exposure to stress, to better understand: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>how epigenetics of genes was altered after exposure to stress</p></li>
<li><p>which different social and psychological factors caused the epigenetic changes.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two paramedics helping an injured patient" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432767/original/file-20211118-20-6bseji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432767/original/file-20211118-20-6bseji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432767/original/file-20211118-20-6bseji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432767/original/file-20211118-20-6bseji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432767/original/file-20211118-20-6bseji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432767/original/file-20211118-20-6bseji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432767/original/file-20211118-20-6bseji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chronic stress, for example via a stressful job, can cause epigenetic changes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We found stress influenced epigenetics and this in turn led to increased rates of distress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms among participants.</p>
<p>However, students who reported high levels of perceived social support showed lesser levels of stress-related health outcomes.</p>
<p>Students with a strong sense of belonging to a group, organisation, or community dealt much better with stress and had reduced negative health outcomes following exposure to stress.</p>
<p>Both these groups of students showed fewer epigenetic changes in genes that were altered as a result of stress.</p>
<h2>COVID has made us more isolated</h2>
<p>The COVID pandemic has created heavy psychological and emotional burdens for people due to uncertainty, altered routines and financial pressures.</p>
<p>In Australia, the rates of anxiety, depression and suicide have soared since the start of the pandemic. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/14/covids-mental-health-toll-one-in-five-australians-report-high-levels-of-psychological-distress">One in five Australians</a> have reported high levels of psychological distress. </p>
<p>The pandemic has also made us more isolated, and our relationships more remote, having a profound impact on social connections and belonging. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1271597465532325894"}"></div></p>
<p>My study highlights how family and community support, and a sense of belonging, influence our genes and act as a protective factor against the effects of stress.</p>
<p>In such unprecedented and stressful times, it’s vital we build and maintain strong social structures that contribute to good physical and mental well-being.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/171607/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Divya Mehta receives funding from the Australian Government National Health and Medical Research Council. </span></em></p>Having strong social support and a sense of belonging buffered and even reversed some of the harmful effects of stress on genes.Divya Mehta, Principal Research Fellow and Team Leader, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1496712020-11-22T14:16:14Z2020-11-22T14:16:14ZHow to get someone’s name right if it’s unfamiliar to you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370219/original/file-20201119-17-1yqr83n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7951%2C5304&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People's names are an integral part of their identity, so it's important to ensure that they are handled correctly.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine you have to say an unfamiliar name and are afraid to say it wrong. What do you do?</p>
<p>Do you try to pronounce it even at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRpsRKuyi3Y">the risk of getting it wrong</a> or do you avoid the name (and perhaps the person) altogether? Do you maybe attempt to <a href="https://youtu.be/wIZtiAtlkZk">shorten the name or invent a nickname</a> for your acquaintance? Do you ask them <a href="https://medium.com/@mastqalander/stop-asking-people-with-unique-names-if-they-have-a-nickname-62e8da2445b7">if they have an easier name</a>?</p>
<p>We have all been faced with this dilemma at one point or another — no one knows how to pronounce every single name in the world. If they think they do, they are probably what education consultant Jennifer Gonzalez calls an “<a href="https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/gift-of-pronunciation/">arrogant mangler</a>,” who doesn’t bother to make an effort.</p>
<p>Or maybe you have been on the other side of the scenario where <a href="https://youtu.be/pc6CJ_kUNYc">your name is under scrutiny</a>, prompting <a href="https://youtu.be/uYn6DxK3K2M">unwanted questions</a> or extra attention from suspicious airport security officers.</p>
<p>Have you tried to set up an online profile only to be told that <a href="https://blog.jgc.org/2010/06/your-last-name-contains-invalid.html">your name is invalid or not allowed</a> the way you write it? Have you been <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/10/online-authenticity-and-how-facebooks-real-name-policy-hurts-native-americans/">accused of not using your real name</a> because it is unusual or it appears differently on your issued identification cards? Do people mix up your first and last names so they are unable to find your name on a list? </p>
<p>Having a common name can be difficult too. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y8b87OaQwQ">People might confuse you with someone else or assign you a nickname</a> to distinguish you from others.</p>
<h2>Name diversity</h2>
<p>In multilingual and multicultural countries like Canada, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/2017/every-name-is-a-canadian-name-1.4013531">people frequently encounter names from diverse languages and cultures</a>. Everyone has stories either about their own name troubles or about difficulties with other people’s names.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1270865779030929412"}"></div></p>
<p>But these are not just anecdotes <a href="https://twitter.com/Luiseach/status/1108439217963712512">on social media</a>. Name-related difficulties can have serious implications for people’s senses of identity and <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/kamala-harris-name-mispronunciation">belonging (or exclusion)</a>. Mistreating someone’s name includes writing or saying their name differently from what they assert is correct, as well as using the name as a motive for ridiculing or discriminating against the person. Mistreating names can affect opportunities in <a href="https://www.sjsu.edu/people/marcos.pizarro/courses/185/s1/Names">education</a>, on the <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w9873">job market</a> and in securing <a href="https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.514.60&rep=rep1&type=pdf">housing</a>.</p>
<p>The way we address each other matters because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511499630">our names are legally, emotionally and socially connected to how we are able to move through and act in the world</a>. Addressing and referring to people by their correct name is a sign of recognition and respect of their personhood. Ignoring naming preferences can be perceived as an insult or an attack. For example, “<a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/deadnaming">deadnaming</a>,” or referring to a person who is transgender by the name they used before they transitioned, can make them feel disrespected and potentially expose them to harassment.</p>
<h2>How to be more inclusive</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://namesandidentity.wixsite.com/canada">linguistic anthropologists researching names</a>, we offer <a href="http://bild-lida.ca/journal/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/JBILD-1-1_Pennesi.pdf">these recommendations</a> for how to be inclusive of all names and more assertive about your own.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>When you are unsure how to pronounce a name, your best option is to ask and try, but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLhFaayJnyQ">avoid turning the name or your discomfort into a spectacle</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/02/26/jimmy-kimmel-mahershala-ali-name-oscars_n_15034386.html">Refrain from commenting on people’s names</a> or making a show out of your attempts to pronounce, spell or remember the name. Don’t ignore someone because you dread pronouncing their name. Instead, verify your pronunciation (in person or by using <a href="https://www.pronouncenames.com/">online resources</a>) and practice saying their name by yourself. Make it your responsibility to get it right and include them in the group.</p></li>
<li><p>Avoid <a href="https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-10-racial-bias.html">making assumptions about people based on their name</a>, such as their language abilities, their <a href="https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/05/assuming-gender/">gender identity</a> or their racial, national, cultural or religious backgrounds. They are not a cultural ambassador or expert on the language you think their name represents, <a href="https://supchina.com/2019/03/12/chinese-people-dont-need-to-be-saved-from-their-english-names/">nor do they need saving from a name you deem culturally unfit</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>You should also <a href="https://escholarship.org/uc/item/76c724ng">not actively erase aspects of someone’s identity and background</a> by giving them unsolicited nicknames that you find ‘easier’ to pronounce or remember. <a href="https://www.parents.com/baby-names/ideas/origin/honoring-ethnic-names-is-an-important-way-to-celebrate-diversity-of-families-in-america/">Careful thought goes into selecting names</a> and the name a person goes by is their choice.</p></li>
<li><p>People may have multiple names for different situations and at different times in their life. Accept the name someone tells you and don’t try to be the judge of <a href="https://www.theodysseyonline.com/why-you-should-never-ask-trans-person-what-their-real-name-is">what you think someone’s name should be</a>. Allow for <a href="https://reporter.mcgill.ca/the-right-to-be-yourself/">preferred names on official forms</a> and let people use those names in <a href="https://www.techjunkie.com/zoom-change-name/">virtual</a> and in-person face-to-face interactions.</p></li>
</ol>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370133/original/file-20201118-21-qklv3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman standing in front of a whiteboard shows how to pronounce different sounds" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370133/original/file-20201118-21-qklv3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370133/original/file-20201118-21-qklv3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370133/original/file-20201118-21-qklv3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370133/original/file-20201118-21-qklv3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370133/original/file-20201118-21-qklv3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370133/original/file-20201118-21-qklv3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370133/original/file-20201118-21-qklv3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s important to put in the work to learn how to appropriately treat people’s names.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If you are responsible for <a href="https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/">setting up web identity forms or managing a database of names</a>, remember that <a href="https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names">personal names do not follow universal standards</a>.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If possible, use a single name field with <a href="https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-personal-names#encoding">enough characters and page space to accommodate long names</a>, instead of forcing them into “first,” “middle” and “last” fields that may not fit the full name.</p></li>
<li><p>If you do need to use separate name fields, allow for multiple components in the “first” and “last” fields.</p></li>
<li><p>Alphabetize by first name so that the number of name components is irrelevant.</p></li>
<li><p>Allow for <a href="https://canadianart.ca/features/canada-150-font/">accents, special characters and non-Latin script</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>Allow people to fill in their <a href="https://uxdesign.cc/designing-forms-for-gender-diversity-and-inclusion-d8194cf1f51">pronouns and/or titles</a> that can stand in for names when the person is referred to in the third person.</p></li>
</ol>
<h2>Responding to mistreatment of names</h2>
<p>If people mistreat your name, you can <a href="https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/how-to-correct-someone-who-mispronounces-your-name-without-being-a-dick">correct others without feeling guilty</a> about it. It is your name and it matters. To reduce errors, you could add an audio “<a href="https://name-coach.com/namebadge">name badge</a>” to your web identity so that others can hear the correct pronunciation.</p>
<p>Your name does not have to be permanent. If name-related problems make life too difficult, you might consider <a href="https://canadianimmigrant.ca/living/community/anglicize-your-name-as-a-newcomer-yes-or-no">(partially) changing your name</a> or adding another name for specific purposes. Or if that approach does not feel right to you, you can <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTPC73SdRkA">reclaim your original name and use it with confidence</a>.</p>
<p>While we offer these recommendations for respectfully navigating name diversity in workplaces, education, social situations and online environments, they are not a guarantee for smooth sailing. You will not always get it right, and that is normal. The best way to bounce back is to <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/01/if-you-dont-know-how-to-say-someones-name-just-ask">acknowledge the mistake</a>, move forward and do better next time.</p>
<p>The important thing to remember is that names matter, and the way we treat them has an impact.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Pennesi occasionally consults to NameCoach.com. Her research has been funded by the University of Western Ontario and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Federica Guccini does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mishandling someone’s name can lead to social exclusion and unbalanced power dynamics. Putting in the work to get names right reflects a dedication to inclusivity and respect for other cultures.Karen Pennesi, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Western UniversityFederica Guccini, PhD Candidate in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1404492020-06-17T20:06:54Z2020-06-17T20:06:54Z‘The neighbours were always very welcoming and warm’: little things count to help refugees belong<p>Successful settlement and integration are shared goals of refugees and the communities where they settle. The findings of our <a href="https://www.ssi.org.au/images/Signature_Foundations_Report_withlink.pdf">research</a> released today highlight the importance of simple everyday encounters and experiences for newly arrived refugees to feel welcome in Australia. We also found refugees’ strong social bonds with family and community do not prevent them developing connections with the broader Australian community.</p>
<p>Here we explore two aspects to refugees’ social connections:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>“social bonds” that connect refugees to others within their ethnic or religious community</p></li>
<li><p>“social bridges” that connect them to others in the wider community. </p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342063/original/file-20200616-23243-16q7850.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342063/original/file-20200616-23243-16q7850.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342063/original/file-20200616-23243-16q7850.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342063/original/file-20200616-23243-16q7850.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342063/original/file-20200616-23243-16q7850.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342063/original/file-20200616-23243-16q7850.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342063/original/file-20200616-23243-16q7850.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342063/original/file-20200616-23243-16q7850.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342064/original/file-20200616-23276-90siv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342064/original/file-20200616-23276-90siv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342064/original/file-20200616-23276-90siv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342064/original/file-20200616-23276-90siv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342064/original/file-20200616-23276-90siv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342064/original/file-20200616-23276-90siv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342064/original/file-20200616-23276-90siv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342064/original/file-20200616-23276-90siv2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Click on pie charts to enlarge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation. Data: Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Most research on refugee integration focuses on areas like employment, education, English proficiency and health. Our research shines a light on aspects of settlement that are often overlooked: refugees’ social connections. The social dimensions of integration help them to build resilience in the face of the challenges of navigating a new chapter of their lives in Australia. </p>
<p>These social connections help lay the foundations for belonging. Ultimately, this promotes their long-term integration. </p>
<p>We surveyed 334 refugees in their preferred language. All were past participants in an on-arrival settlement program in New South Wales. We conducted 15 follow-up interviews.</p>
<p>Importantly, all the survey participants had permanent residency in Australia. This gave them full and equal access to rights and services. We believe this was a critical factor in the high levels of belonging they reported. </p>
<p>The security of permanent protection provides a bedrock for high levels of trust in both the Australian community and institutions. The majority of respondents reported strong trust in: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>the government (a lot of trust, 85%)</p></li>
<li><p>the people they work and study with (78%, a lot/some)</p></li>
<li><p>the people in their neighbourhood (75%, a lot/some)</p></li>
<li><p>the wider Australian community, to a slightly lesser extent (67% a lot/some).</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342078/original/file-20200616-23255-10wup1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342078/original/file-20200616-23255-10wup1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342078/original/file-20200616-23255-10wup1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342078/original/file-20200616-23255-10wup1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342078/original/file-20200616-23255-10wup1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342078/original/file-20200616-23255-10wup1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342078/original/file-20200616-23255-10wup1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342078/original/file-20200616-23255-10wup1z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation. Data: Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Building bonds with Australia starts locally</h2>
<p>As refugees engage with their ethnic and religious communities, our research found they also develop a strong sense of belonging to their local neighbourhood and mixed friendship networks.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342090/original/file-20200616-23231-2npjs6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342090/original/file-20200616-23231-2npjs6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342090/original/file-20200616-23231-2npjs6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342090/original/file-20200616-23231-2npjs6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342090/original/file-20200616-23231-2npjs6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342090/original/file-20200616-23231-2npjs6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342090/original/file-20200616-23231-2npjs6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342090/original/file-20200616-23231-2npjs6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation. Data: Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Over three-quarters of respondents regularly meet and get to know people from ethnic and religious backgrounds other than their own. This indicates a high level of interactions and social bridges in everyday situations.</p>
<p>However, age, gender and particularly place of residence all play a role. Refugees living in regional areas were more likely than people in metropolitan areas to regularly meet people from ethnic/religious communities other than their own (90% strongly agree/agree in rural areas compared to 81% in urban areas). Men were more likely to regularly meet people from different backgrounds (81% strongly agree/agree compared to 70% among women), as were those between the ages of 18 and 24 (79%). </p>
<h2>Good neighbours create social bridges</h2>
<p>We found it’s mainly everyday encounters and experiences that foster refugees’ social bridges to the wider community. Their rates of participation in formal community activities – such as school, parent support groups and youth groups – were relatively low. </p>
<p>Despite reporting language difficulties in talking with their neighbours, refugees had high levels of trust in their neighbours and neighbourhoods. This was a result of positive and regular interactions and experiences. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342087/original/file-20200616-23217-eu426t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342087/original/file-20200616-23217-eu426t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342087/original/file-20200616-23217-eu426t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342087/original/file-20200616-23217-eu426t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342087/original/file-20200616-23217-eu426t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342087/original/file-20200616-23217-eu426t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342087/original/file-20200616-23217-eu426t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342087/original/file-20200616-23217-eu426t.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation, Data: Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The findings suggest that local, everyday and neighbourhood-level social bridges are a critical part of refugee belonging. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342326/original/file-20200617-23247-4mhesp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342326/original/file-20200617-23247-4mhesp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342326/original/file-20200617-23247-4mhesp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342326/original/file-20200617-23247-4mhesp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342326/original/file-20200617-23247-4mhesp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342326/original/file-20200617-23247-4mhesp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342326/original/file-20200617-23247-4mhesp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342326/original/file-20200617-23247-4mhesp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation, Data: Author provided</span></span>
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<p>It is at this local scale that policy and service interventions are most likely to succeed. The findings also highlight why it’s important to safeguard and enhance positive attitudes towards refugees in the wider community.</p>
<p>For example, 25-year-old Maher from Afghanistan, who arrived in 2017, spoke about the importance of neighbours being friendly. He remembers them saying hello to him when he first arrived:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The neighbours were always very welcoming and warm, and usually when they see me they were greeting me well and it was making me feel very comfortable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Aram, a 39-year-old Armenian man from Syria, also arrived in 2017. He, too, valued the general friendliness in his multicultural neighbourhood: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The community where I’m at, or the neighbourhood, there are people from all different races, from Asian to Middle-Eastern, Africans, they are all different nations. So we get along really well. We all say ‘hello’ to each other, very courteous to each other. So, in both ways, it feels that I’m welcome from this end and welcome from the other end. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>These are the simple things anyone can do</h2>
<p>Overall, our findings suggest people in the community can do a number of simple, everyday things to help refugees feel welcome. And, in doing so, they support their integration. Suggested actions include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>say hello, smile and wave to neighbours – even if there is a language barrier, small positive actions make people feel like they are living in a safe and supportive community</p></li>
<li><p>help with everyday activities if you can – offer to carry in shopping, give lifts to work or school, keep an eye on the house or collect mail when neighbours are away, which are all small actions that newly arrived families remember as very welcoming</p></li>
<li><p>support grassroots ethnic and religious community groups if they are fundraising, holding activities or looking for volunteers – these are great local spaces to build social “bridges”</p></li>
<li><p>contribute to an overall positive social climate and public discourse by sharing positive attitudes towards refugees and supporting organisations that do the same.</p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140449/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shanthi Robertson receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tadgh McMahon is Research and Policy Manager at Settlement Services International which provides services to refugees and migrants. </span></em></p>It’s the simple, everyday encounters and experiences – a friendly wave, a helping hand – that refugees say makes them feel part of the Australian community.Shanthi Robertson, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityTadgh McMahon, Adjunct Lecturer, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1335942020-03-16T15:07:06Z2020-03-16T15:07:06ZCoronavirus event cancellations: Communication is key to retaining public trust<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320486/original/file-20200313-115138-1iyrnys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C4928%2C3002&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When the COVID-19 pandemic tapers off, festivals will be an important part of recovery. Here, crowds last April at the 2019 Coachella music festival, in Indio, CA. The spring festival has been cancelled and rescheduled for the fall. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Around the world, festivals, sporting events, conferences and community celebrations are being cancelled or postponed due to concerns over the spread of COVID-19. Event organizers have had to make difficult decisions about how to proceed, and would-be attendees question whether they should plan to go. </p>
<p>In many communities, <a href="https://vancouversun.com/health/local-health/covid-19-update-province-bans-mass-gatherings-advises-against-travel-amid-seven-new-b-c-cases/">mass gatherings are banned</a> as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/">social distancing</a> becomes the norm. <a href="https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315186320-26">Technology</a> may allow some organizations to offer event experiences online, and some organizers already have <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/community-support-coronavirus-1.5498521">plans underway</a>.</p>
<p>This pandemic has already led to high-profile event cancellations like California’s spring <a href="https://www.coachella.com/">Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival</a>, and Canada’s national music awards <a href="https://junoawards.ca/">(the Junos)</a> — in the latter case, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B9o9-rBHxQH/">at the very time that some artists were flying in</a>. Coachella has been rescheduled for the fall, but how that will work for those who planned to attend in April remains to be seen.</p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/large-events/mass-gatherings-ready-for-covid-19.html">new recommendations</a> emerging daily, both large and <a href="https://www.elmiramaplesyrup.com/">small-scale event cancellations</a> are becoming more common and are affecting more communities. </p>
<p>To try to slow the progression of COVID-19, in ever-shifting contexts, travel and events are being postponed or <a href="https://www.dominionpost.com/2020/03/15/a-list-of-cancellations-and-postponements-due-to-coronavirus/">cancelled</a>, including in communities that have no known COVID-19 cases, few cases or no known community transmission of the virus. </p>
<p>This attempt to <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/could-canada-be-flattening-the-curve-of-coronavirus-cases/">“flatten the curve”</a> is a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/11/814603316/public-health-experts-encourage-social-distancing-to-flatten-the-curve-of-infect">public health strategy</a> to slow the spread of the virus, to contain it and to allow time to respond. </p>
<p>While this may be critical, it is also important to consider what may be lost when events are cancelled.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1238073524125872129"}"></div></p>
<h2>Social costs of cancellations</h2>
<p>The economic fallout of event cancellations is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/arts/music/coachella-concerts-coronavirus.html">making headlines</a>. However, little attention has been paid to the social costs. Events play an important role in community life and research has repeatedly shown that attending festivals and community events <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6629(198601)14:1%3C6::AID-JCOP2290140103%3E3.0.CO;2-I">has many benefits</a>. </p>
<p>In a study examining the social impact of events, my colleagues and I found that attending festivals is related to a <a href="https://doi.org/10.3727/152599513X13668224082468">sense of emotional connection</a>. By coming together to share in a common experience, we <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/1520-6629(198601)14:1%3C6::AID-JCOP2290140103%3E3.0.CO;2-I">build stronger, more resilient communities</a>. </p>
<p>In a recent episode of the <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/225-happiness-takes-work-sonja-lyubomirsky/id1087147821?i=1000464672504"><em>Ten Percent Happier</em></a> podcast, Sonja Lyubomirsky, social psychologist, discussed the importance of social connection to happiness. Lyubomirsky’s work suggests that regardless of whether we are introverted or extraverted, connecting with other people seems to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000668">contribute to our well-being</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3727/152599516X14538326024919">Social interaction</a> is a common driver of event attendance and is thought to contribute to both social and individual benefits. Furthermore, we have found that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19368620902950071">sense of belonging</a> that people value often motivates them to attend events so that they can spend time with family, friends and their community.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320492/original/file-20200313-115127-m06t8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320492/original/file-20200313-115127-m06t8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320492/original/file-20200313-115127-m06t8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320492/original/file-20200313-115127-m06t8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320492/original/file-20200313-115127-m06t8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320492/original/file-20200313-115127-m06t8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320492/original/file-20200313-115127-m06t8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">SXSW interactive, film and music festival attendees crowd the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas, March 2013. The high-profile film festival was cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP Photo/Jack Plunkett)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Risk that events won’t return</h2>
<p>Once an event is cancelled, there is always a risk that it will not return, and this may be a particular concern for small-budget groups already working to maximize scarce resources. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3727/152599502108751604">Festival failure</a> is common and frequently caused by financial issues and external forces. </p>
<p>For some community organizations, their annual event is the only opportunity they have to earn an income to continue existing for another year. For other events, the expenses incurred during planning cannot be fully recouped in the case of cancellation. </p>
<p>Long before an event takes place, the organizers have paid performer fees, rented venues and produced marketing materials. While larger events often have insurance to cover some of the losses, many smaller community-based events don’t. </p>
<p>The recent <a href="https://www.indiewire.com/2020/03/sxsw-canceled-filmmakers-industry-coronavirus-south-by-southwest-1202216107/">cancellation of South by Southwest (SXSW), the interactive, film and music festival</a> in Texas, demonstrates the pressure organizers face during uncertain times. </p>
<p>To survive a crisis event, organizers must <a href="https://ttra.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Crisis-Communication-During-a-Festival-Emergency.pdf">clearly communicate</a> in order to minimize the risk associated with cancelling. This can be a challenge when official guidelines are quickly evolving and speculation flourishes. </p>
<p>Evidence-based guidelines, like those offered by the <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/technical-guidance/points-of-entry-and-mass-gatherings">World Health Organization</a> or <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection/health-professionals/mass-gatherings-risk-assesment.html">national governments</a>, must be considered. <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/2142/47257">Misinformation travels quickly</a> and so it’s important to remain vigilant and refer to official, trustworthy sources of information when making decisions about cancelling or attending events. </p>
<h2>Support isn’t cancelled</h2>
<p>What should you do if you have tickets to an upcoming event? Know and respond to the current recommendations within your own community or where your event is supposed to unfold. </p>
<p>If mass gatherings are banned in your community or your local events make the difficult choice to cancel, and you are disappointed, consider ways to help festival and event organizations survive the cancellation. </p>
<p>Many events are run by not-for-profit organizations. Instead of simply skipping the tentative or cancelled event, consider donating, volunteering or reaching out to the organization to express your support and signal your readiness to attend events once circumstances change. These acts of giving can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118539415.wbwell046">improve our well-being</a>.</p>
<h2>Festivals after recovery</h2>
<p>This pandemic, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html">like others</a>, will eventually taper off. When that happens, festivals and events will be an important part of recovery. After SARS took its toll on Toronto in 2003, a <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/whos-playing-at-sars-concert/article22617986/">SARS benefit concert featuring the Rolling Stones, Rush and other high-profile artists helped to bring visitors back to the city</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320490/original/file-20200313-115083-gl59xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320490/original/file-20200313-115083-gl59xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320490/original/file-20200313-115083-gl59xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320490/original/file-20200313-115083-gl59xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320490/original/file-20200313-115083-gl59xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320490/original/file-20200313-115083-gl59xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320490/original/file-20200313-115083-gl59xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1055&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Concert goers take in the sunny weather during a concert for SARS relief in Toronto at Downsview Park in July 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Festivals and events contribute to our <a href="https://doi.org/10.5172/rsj.351.13.1.35">sense of place</a> and our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEFM-01-2013-0002">sense of community</a>, both of which will need fostering following the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<p>Feelings of disappointment and frustration may mount as more people become affected by event cancellations in their communities. Before the pandemic passes, as it will, we have a lot to gain from showing acts of support towards festival and event organizers. We can also bear in mind the power of celebrating with friends, family and community at future in-person gatherings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Van Winkle receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and worked in partnership with Calian Emergency Management Solutions. She is the Chair of the Travel and Tourism Research Association, Canada Chapter. </span></em></p>The decision to cancel a festival is never easy and can have difficult financial and community costs. Both planners and would-be attendees can play a role in mitigating the impact.Christine Van Winkle, Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1213982019-08-15T11:15:48Z2019-08-15T11:15:48ZWhy building community – even through discomfort – could help stressed college students<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287438/original/file-20190808-144847-18h50u6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A sense of belonging can enhance the college experience. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU2NTMzMjk0MiwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfNDI3MzMzNTI4IiwiayI6InBob3RvLzQyNzMzMzUyOC9tZWRpdW0uanBnIiwibSI6MSwiZCI6InNodXR0ZXJzdG9jay1tZWRpYSJ9LCJReDZOUnBkQitvNzVnWXU2TWxNQkV0UHZSUUEiXQ%2Fshutterstock_427333528.jpg&ir=true&pi=11079995&m=427333528&src=XA37uS2THxWRK94xXJJm9A-1-15">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is a growing problem on campuses across America. Students entering college are reporting levels of anxiety, depression and social isolation <a href="https://www.apa.org/advocacy/higher-education/mental-health/">higher than previous generations</a>. The phrase “<a href="https://theconversation.com/1-in-5-college-students-have-anxiety-or-depression-heres-why-90440">mental health crisis</a>” has become commonplace within <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/one-small-step-address-student-mental-health-crisis">higher education circles</a>.</p>
<p>Today’s undergraduates belong to the group known as Generation Z, iGen or post-millenials, <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/11/15/early-benchmarks-show-post-millennials-on-track-to-be-most-diverse-best-educated-generation-yet/psdt-11-15-18_postmillennials-00-01/">defined roughly as those born between 1997 and 2012</a>. They comprise the most <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/15/668106376/generation-z-is-the-most-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-yet">ethnically diverse</a> and globally connected generation of U.S. students. They have been widely categorized as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-millennials/millennials-tattooed-plugged-in-open-minded-idUSTRE61N18B20100224">open-minded</a>, <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/08/millennials-are-actually-workaholics-according-to-research">hard-working</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/15/668106376/generation-z-is-the-most-racially-and-ethnically-diverse-yet">eager to solve world problems</a>.</p>
<p>So why do so many of these students report feeling stressed and socially disconnected on campuses – and what can be done to help? Surprisingly, <a href="http://sites.middlebury.edu/shapiro/">my research</a> shows that a sense of safety or comfort may not be enough.</p>
<h2>A sense of belonging</h2>
<p>Like a number of other researchers, I have been working to understand what factors contribute to college students’ sense of belonging. Sense of belonging is difficult to measure: It is not captured with demographic statistics or attrition rates. Rather, it has to do with students’ feelings of <a href="https://medium.com/@terrell.strayhorn/five-things-to-know-about-students-sense-of-belonging-insights-from-my-uber-driver-s-daughter-30cc9da45e2e">importance, connectedness, respect and shared sense of purpose within the campus community</a>. These feelings <a href="https://www.crcpress.com/College-Students-Sense-of-Belonging-A-Key-to-Educational-Success-for-All/Strayhorn/p/book/9781138238558">track closely</a> with students’ reports of personal growth, as well as their academic performance. </p>
<p>Decades of research shows that one of the key ingredients for a sense of belonging is <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-Colleges-Can-Cultivate/243123">frequent interaction with diverse groups of peers</a>. Such interactions not only allow students to learn from one another – they also improve student perceptions of the campus climate as a whole.</p>
<p>However, when my research assistants and I surveyed dozens of students about their experiences <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/06/18/middlebury-professor-surveys-student-attitudes-about-free-speech-opinion">engaging with peers whose backgrounds and perspectives differ from their own</a>, we found that such experiences were less common and positive than we had expected. </p>
<p>Many students described our campus – a small liberal arts college in rural Vermont as socially segregated – <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedder/2018/11/15/racial-segregation-on-american-campuses-a-widespread-phenomenon/#ed80fc244552">a trend documented at other institutions</a>. Students described a variety of social divisions – not just along the lines of race and class, but also for example, between athletes and non-athletes. Students in our study said they want to push past these boundaries, but many are unsure how to do so in ways that are meaningful and productive.</p>
<p>“If students were able to step outside of their box more and interact with people they wouldn’t naturally interact with, that could help,” suggested one student – a comment echoed by many others. “Students have to take risks,” said another, “in terms of expanding what you’re comfortable doing in regard to what you’re in interested in.”</p>
<p>Yet when asked in a separate study <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/05/13/exploring-student-views-inclusivity-campuses-opinion">what inclusivity means to them</a>, many of my students invoked images of harmony, peacefulness and acceptance. There seemed to be little room for tension or conflict in their views.</p>
<p>This creates a paradox, since engaging with diversity – that key ingredient for sense of belonging – may involve discomfort and even tension at times. If students gauge the success of those interactions in terms of short-term comfort, rather than long-term growth, they may end up feeling further alienated from one another. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287612/original/file-20190811-144838-19l10y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287612/original/file-20190811-144838-19l10y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287612/original/file-20190811-144838-19l10y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287612/original/file-20190811-144838-19l10y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287612/original/file-20190811-144838-19l10y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287612/original/file-20190811-144838-19l10y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287612/original/file-20190811-144838-19l10y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bringing different groups of students together can improve an individual’s sense of belonging on a college campus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU2NTU1MzY2OCwiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfNDM2NTkxMjg4IiwiayI6InBob3RvLzQzNjU5MTI4OC9tZWRpdW0uanBnIiwibSI6MSwiZCI6InNodXR0ZXJzdG9jay1tZWRpYSJ9LCIzbExvYzN5Nk9EVFduVUppbUxzYzBNWUxTK3MiXQ%2Fshutterstock_436591288.jpg&pi=33421636&m=436591288&src=6TH1QmzsHAqeezv_XdJBwQ-1-92">www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Paddling furiously</h2>
<p>Indeed, at many institutions, and elite ones in particular, there is a culture of <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/millennial-duck-syndrome-the-faked-success-cycle-that_b_5924f5d8e4b09c5b6bf92d10?guccounter=1">“Duck Syndrome”</a> in which students appear to each other to be “gliding effortlessly,” but are in fact “paddling furiously” beneath the surface. Students often avoid discomfort, therefore, with a <a href="https://psychcentral.com/blog/teens-the-duck-syndrome/">“fake it ‘til you make it”</a> approach to social interactions.</p>
<p>This performed perfectionism can cause students to feel as if they are alone in their struggles. Conversely, sharing honest accounts of “<a href="http://gregorywalton-stanford.weebly.com/research.html">belonging uncertainty</a>” – even if such accounts make students feel vulnerable or uncomfortable – can help to decrease feelings of isolation. </p>
<p>The good news is that many institutions are experimenting with ways to promote a culture of belonging. Stanford University, said to be the <a href="https://www.stanforddaily.com/2018/01/31/duck-syndrome-and-a-culture-of-misery/">epicenter of “Duck Syndrome,”</a> has implemented the <a href="https://learningconnection.stanford.edu/resilience-project">Resilience Project</a>, which aims to “instill a sense of belonging and bravery,” through storytelling about failure and struggle. The <a href="https://www.smith.edu/about-smith/news/failing-well">Failing Well</a> project at Smith College has a similar goal, and even works with students to create a “failure resume” describing setbacks they have faced. </p>
<p>These sorts of initiatives are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/fashion/fear-of-failure.html">part of a national trend</a> toward programming that helps students to forge social connections through sharing experiences of discomfort, rather than allowing students to avoid discomfort through social segregation. A key feature of these programs is that they are accessible (or even required) for all students, regardless of their social identity. Middlebury is also taking part: Our orientation for first-year students includes an event called <a href="https://middleburycampus.com/11191/features/uncensored-first-years-open-up-about-their-lives-and-fears/">Midd Uncensored</a>, during which students share their hopes and fears about college adjustment. First-years also participate in a program called <a href="https://justalks.wixsite.com/justalks">JusTalks</a>, which aims to “foster dialogue and communication that confronts privilege and engages with difference.”</p>
<h2>Redefining what belonging means</h2>
<p>One takeaway from my research is that those of us working in higher education need to help students redefine belonging as something more than comfort. We need to have honest conversations with students about the role of disagreement and tension in building relationships across social groups.</p>
<p>It is not enough, however, simply to tell students to “toughen up,” which is the message many receive from <a href="https://www.thefire.org/get-involved/student-network/take-action/adopting-the-chicago-statement/">institutional statements</a> on free speech and intellectual freedom. Colleges and universities also need to prepare students and ourselves to engage productively with the discomfort they will inevitably encounter as they interact with diverse peers and perspectives.</p>
<p>This sort of preparation is taking place on a number of campuses in the U.S. and abroad that have courses or programming focused on deep listening, including the <a href="https://lib.d.umn.edu/about/listening">University of Minnesota at Duluth</a> and the <a href="https://www.ed.ac.uk/chaplaincy/the-university-listening-project">University of Edinburgh</a>. Middlebury is in its second year of a grant-funded <a href="http://engagedlistening.middcreate.net/about/">Engaged Listening Project</a>, which provides resources and opportunities for connecting across difference.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288022/original/file-20190814-136186-xb87e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288022/original/file-20190814-136186-xb87e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288022/original/file-20190814-136186-xb87e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288022/original/file-20190814-136186-xb87e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288022/original/file-20190814-136186-xb87e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288022/original/file-20190814-136186-xb87e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288022/original/file-20190814-136186-xb87e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Decades of research shows that one of the key ingredients for a sense of belonging is frequent interaction with diverse groups of peers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU2NTgxMTAzMywiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfMTc1MjU5MTIwIiwiayI6InBob3RvLzE3NTI1OTEyMC9odWdlLmpwZyIsIm0iOjEsImQiOiJzaHV0dGVyc3RvY2stbWVkaWEifSwiNFRGZlJ0dHczWVlsN3RWWjNhVFoxaGpuT2I0Il0%2Fshutterstock_175259120.jpg&pi=33421636&m=175259120&src=ndYPMoX9IaST0QBUr6T-EA-1-35">www.shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How to help</h2>
<p>Faculty can also do more to build community in the classroom – not just in week one, but throughout the semester. This can happen, for example, through increased use of pair or small group work in class, as well as through projects and assignments that invite students to put course learning into dialogue with their lived experiences. Staff working in student life may want to consider offering more programming designed to stretch students socially, such as events where connecting across difference is the central goal, rather than a possible byproduct.</p>
<p>And students may be the best positioned to tell us what can help: Some of those we interviewed, for example, suggested that the campus dining halls are underutilized as a space for deepening and broadening relationships. Sharing a meal, they reminded us, helps to create the atmosphere for good conversation.</p>
<p>Sense of belonging isn’t simply about creating warm, fuzzy feelings. It is about taking seriously the potential for transformative learning within a diverse community. I can’t think of a more worthy goal for higher education.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shawna Shapiro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Engaging with diversity – a key ingredient for sense of belonging on college campuses – may involve discomfort and even tension at times.Shawna Shapiro, Associate Professor of Writing and Linguistics; Director of Writing & Rhetoric Program, MiddleburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/996412018-08-02T20:23:42Z2018-08-02T20:23:42ZTeachers play a key role in helping students feel they ‘belong’ at school<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230285/original/file-20180801-136679-4e1qy4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A low sense of belonging is associated with negative behaviours including misbehaviour, drug and alcohol use at school, violence and dropping out of school. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.acer.org/">Australian Council for Educational Research</a> (ACER) released a <a href="https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1031&context=ozpisa">report</a> on Australian students’ sense of belonging in school in May. It described as “disturbing” some of the differences in Australian students’ sense of belonging between male and female students, students from high and low socio-economic backgrounds, and Indigenous and non-Indigenous backgrounds. </p>
<p>ACER <a href="https://rd.acer.org/article/australian-students-feel-they-dont-belong-research">stated</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>While the majority of Australian students feel a sense of belonging at school, there is a solid core of students who do not feel this way – roughly one in five, or five students in the average classroom.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The report analyses the Programme for International Student Assessment’s (PISA) <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/pisa-2015-results-volume-iii_9789264273856-en">data</a> collected from 36 countries, including Australia. The assessment asks 15-year-old students to answer a number of questions regarding their sense of belonging in school. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/many-australian-school-students-feel-they-dont-belong-in-school-new-research-97866">Many Australian school students feel they 'don't belong' in school: new research</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Prioritising belonging within school culture is essential. If done effectively, educators can support students’ emotional and social development and enhance their motivation, effort and achievement throughout secondary school.</p>
<h2>What is a sense of belonging and is it important?</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883035516301203">sense of belonging</a> in school is the degree to which students feel respected, accepted and supported by teachers and peers. It has been linked to students’ attention and effort in class, their persistence and completion of learning activities. </p>
<figure>
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</figure>
<p>An understanding of belonging is important for educators. It allows them to plan effective practices to support students in the classroom and school-wide.</p>
<p>According to international <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/pisa-2015-results-volume-iii_9789264273856-en">research</a>, when students feel they’re part of a school community, they will actively engage in academic and non-academic activities.</p>
<p>Improving feelings of belonging in school can support both student engagement and achievement. <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4614-2018-7_5">Research</a> shows students who report a high sense of belonging in school generally put in more effort and are more motivated. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/school-engagement-predicts-success-later-in-life-15157">School engagement predicts success later in life</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>A low sense of belonging is associated with negative, possibly antisocial or delinquent, behaviours. These could include misbehaviour, drug and alcohol use at school, violence and dropping out of school. </p>
<h2>Sense of belonging decreases in secondary school</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/90280/jora753.pdf;sequence=1">study</a> from the US found students’ sense of belonging declines from year 7 through to year 11. With it, students’ educational aspirations also decrease. </p>
<p>This decline may be due to a mismatch between secondary school students’ need for autonomy and interaction, and their learning environment. They may experience less supportive and caring teacher-student relationships, increased teacher control, and limited opportunities for autonomy. </p>
<p>Similarly, a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883035516301203">study</a> in Finland found students’ sense of belonging weakened significantly, specifically at the end of year 8. This might be because secondary students need to adapt to a larger social network and a larger number of teachers, so they may not know their peers or teachers as well. </p>
<p>There have been similar findings in Australian secondary schools. <a href="https://www.cese.nsw.gov.au/images/stories/PDF/LearningCurve7_TTFM_May2015.pdf">Research</a> in NSW found students’ engagement in learning decreases in the middle of secondary school. This is referred to as the “year 9 dip”. This dip is also present in students’ reported sense of belonging. </p>
<figure>
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</figure>
<h2>Teachers are an important piece of the puzzle</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0883035516301203">Teachers play an important role</a> in nurturing students’ sense of belonging. If a student considers their teacher to be caring and accepting, they’re more likely to adopt the academic and social values of their teacher. This can influence how students feel about school work and how much (or how little) they value it. </p>
<p>The teaching practices the teacher adopts in the classroom are key. Approaches to teaching that foster belonging include:</p>
<ul>
<li>prioritising high-quality teacher-student relationships </li>
<li>creating a supportive and caring learning environment </li>
<li>offering emotional support to students</li>
<li>being sensitive to students’ needs and emotions </li>
<li>showing interest in students </li>
<li>trying to understand students’ point of view </li>
<li>respectful and fair treatment </li>
<li>fostering positive peer relationships and mutual respect among classmates to establish a sense of community</li>
<li>positive classroom management.</li>
</ul>
<p>Other significant <a href="https://www.cese.nsw.gov.au/images/stories/PDF/student_wellbeing_LR_AA.pdf">approaches</a> include giving students a voice, working with community partners to meet students’ needs, student participation in extra-curricular activities, and developing a culture of high standards and behaviours across the whole school.</p>
<h2>Teachers and schools must plan for at-risk students</h2>
<p>Importantly, <a href="https://www.cese.nsw.gov.au/images/stories/PDF/student_wellbeing_LR_AA.pdf">some groups</a> of students may feel lower levels of belonging. This includes students with different cultural or language backgrounds, students with disabilities or students who identify as <a href="https://lgbtqia.ucdavis.edu/educated/glossary.html">LGBTQIA+</a>. </p>
<p>For example, students from an <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/the-resilience-of-students-with-an-immigrant-background_9789264292093-en">immigrant background</a> have more positive attitudes and greater academic motivation if their teachers care about them, give academic feedback and guidance, and help them when necessary.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/inclusive-education-means-all-children-are-included-in-every-way-not-just-in-theory-45237">Inclusive education means all children are included in every way, not just in theory</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26563601">Research</a> suggests school strategies that increase a sense of belonging in at-risk students could reduce school drop-out rates and lead to improved academic achievement.</p>
<p>In addition to the strategies previously mentioned to support students’ emotional, behavioural and social development, school policies to support at-risk students should:</p>
<ul>
<li>promote respect for ethnic diversity </li>
<li>be intolerant of discrimination</li>
<li>support teachers to implement fair classroom practices </li>
<li>encourage parent involvement in school to build social connections between home and school</li>
<li>create a school culture of acceptance.</li>
</ul>
<p>Teachers and schools can take steps to improve students’ sense of belonging in school, which is important for all students and especially those identified as being at-risk.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan L Kelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When students feel accepted and respected by their teachers and peers, they will actively engage in academic and non-academic activities.Megan L Kelly, Associate Lecturer & PhD Candidate, School of Education, Southern Cross UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/861662018-05-22T09:48:53Z2018-05-22T09:48:53ZBritons reluctant to appear part of a British expat community in France – Brexit could change that<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193971/original/file-20171109-27130-1t4qpxo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/vineclad-chateaux-overlooking-vineyard-bordeaux-france-295999805?src=sUdOD4YTFNFx8QJuRjPiMQ-1-1">via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the UK’s Brexit vote, many migrants to Britain have been made to feel like unwelcome outsiders. At the end of a visit to the country in early May, the UN special rapporteur on racism, Tendayi Achiume, said there had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/11/uk-has-seen-brexit-related-growth-in-racism-says-un-representative">been a growth</a> in “explicit racial, ethnic and religious intolerance” since Brexit.</p>
<p>But Britons have long been migrants elsewhere too. My own <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14708477.2016.1165242">research</a> among British people living in south-west France showed how they are often obsessed with their own integration into French society.</p>
<p>Integration is a difficult concept to measure or define. It’s reflected in social cohesion and with being able to work and socialise with people outside your own culture. But it’s not a one-way street. Integration depends on a degree of acceptance from the existing population – some have even <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-brexit-nationals-could-take-a-lesson-in-integration-from-immigrants-63674">argued</a> there needs to be a more active two-way process of adapting to each other. </p>
<p>Among those I interviewed, their obsession with integration sometimes mirrored their attitudes towards immigrants in the UK. One interviewee compared what he saw as isolated clusters of migrants in England with huddles of Britons living abroad together. He said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In England we call them ghettos, when you get all the Caribbean people living here and all the Polish people living there. That shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be in England and it shouldn’t be out here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many interviewees cited stereotypes of Britons abroad: that they isolate themselves from the locals, depend on British foods, services and each other, and they don’t learn the language. There was criticism, of “other” Britons whom they felt were doing things the wrong way. The stereotypes were also reinforced in dozens of press <a href="https://jomec.cardiffuniversitypress.org/articles/abstract/10.18573/j.2015.10003/">articles</a> about the British in France. </p>
<p>Even since the 2016 EU referendum, media reports on the high numbers of Britons working in Europe have used <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/27/fewer-britons-in-rest-of-europe-than-previously-thought-ons-research">stereotypical images</a> that imply Britons in the EU spend their time sitting around in bars draped in the Union Jack flag. No one wants to be aligned with that stereotype, and the Britons in France whom I spoke with were keen to avoid being seen as part of a British network or community.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193976/original/file-20171109-27116-17rgyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193976/original/file-20171109-27116-17rgyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193976/original/file-20171109-27116-17rgyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193976/original/file-20171109-27116-17rgyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193976/original/file-20171109-27116-17rgyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193976/original/file-20171109-27116-17rgyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193976/original/file-20171109-27116-17rgyuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brits living abroad refuse to be a stereotype.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/london-uk-september-28-2015-draught-334008767?src=FnKvb3iaeDGc13JfHwLbvw-1-6">via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Easier said than done</h2>
<p>Many of those I spoke to felt that they managed quite well in French on a “need to know basis”, relying on more competent acquaintances to translate documents and even accompany them to hospital appointments. However, such dependency contradicts the idea of being integrated.</p>
<p>What surprised me was how creative people became when articulating a sense of what it meant to be integrated – for them. One couple, whose low level of French limited their activities, skimmed over their lack of socialising and emphasised their compliance with French residency laws. They contrasted themselves with the “part-timers” who still drove around with UK registration plates. </p>
<p>Another couple talked about how being treated like “freaks” or “royalty” at a neighbour’s wedding – where everyone wanted to have a photograph taken with them because they were English – showed how they were properly being integrated. Yet their choice of language sounded more as if they were being positioned as outsiders by their French neighbours. </p>
<p>The same people had proudly told me that they filled the car with bacon and teabags on their twice yearly trips home, just a few minutes after describing other Britons as sad and wrong for continuing to eat British foods. They added that the French expected to be shown what the British eat, and therefore they were merely addressing a “duty” to show the French things such as fish and chips and haggis. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193974/original/file-20171109-27106-1vpwc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193974/original/file-20171109-27106-1vpwc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193974/original/file-20171109-27106-1vpwc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193974/original/file-20171109-27106-1vpwc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193974/original/file-20171109-27106-1vpwc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193974/original/file-20171109-27106-1vpwc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193974/original/file-20171109-27106-1vpwc5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some obstacles are easier to overcome than others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/paris-france-17-june-2015-chouquettes-297179267">via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Almost everyone I spoke to was reluctant to position themselves within any kind of British community. People claimed that they didn’t mix with other Britons living nearby, although it became clear that most of them knew each other.</p>
<p>It became clear that being integrated can mean very different things to different people. The Britons I interviewed in France were so keen to avoid the British stereotype that they interpreted the concept of “integration” to fit around their own behaviour. </p>
<h2>Post-Brexit</h2>
<p>All of this could well be changing in the turbulent Brexit landscape. Britons now face an uncertain future regarding their right to reside in France, if the current plans set out in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-brexit-deal-means-for-eu-citizens-and-their-families-88901">draft withdrawal agreement</a> between the EU and UK fall through. </p>
<p>Having caught up with one of my interviewees after the vote in late 2017, I detected a feeling of dislocation, or disconnection, from Britain itself. This made me wonder how far Brexit might now be bolstering a sense of being part of a British community in France, in the face of a common threat. </p>
<p>People are certainly seeking support in numbers, for example the buoyant <a href="http://www.remaininfrance.org/">RIFT</a> (Remain in France Together) network, a campaign and support group of over 6,000 members. These kinds of networks appear to be generating a stronger manifestation of a British-in-France identity. </p>
<p>At the same time I suspect that they will subdue some of the reluctance to be a part of it. As the British incomers seek solidarity, my guess is that they will become less reluctant to be seen as part of the British community in France.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86166/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Lawson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Britons living in France are obsessed with how well integrated they are.Michelle Lawson, Associate Lecturer and Honorary Associate in Applied Linguistics, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/856362017-11-09T09:47:10Z2017-11-09T09:47:10ZTo be cosmopolitan you don’t have to be rootless or a member of the global elite<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193181/original/file-20171103-26478-izmpaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/restaurant-alcohol-bar-drinks-3540/">pexels.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The idea of being a “citizen of the world” is often associated with global elites – those who <a href="https://theconversation.com/four-things-the-paradise-papers-tell-us-about-global-business-and-political-elites-86946">shelter their wealth in offshore tax havens</a> or invest their way to citizenship wherever they choose using a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a8b1cf7c-8bea-11e6-8cb7-e7ada1d123b1">“golden visa” route</a>. </p>
<p>This was the “international elite” that the British prime minister, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ffb25e84-8af2-11e6-8aa5-f79f5696c731">Theresa May</a>, targeted in her conference speech in the wake of the Brexit vote when she argued that: “If you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere.” Her comment draws from a <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Conceiving_Cosmopolitanism.html?id=LSClrIr4rToC">common and longstanding stereotype</a> of cosmopolitans as rootless, uncommitted elites. </p>
<p>The journalist <a href="http://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-road-to-somewhere">David Goodhart</a> refers to what he calls a tribe of mobile “global villagers” who are likely to identify as citizens of the world. This is the image of individualistic high flyers who benefit from globalisation and want a borderless world. They live in their “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/opinion/sunday/the-myth-of-cosmopolitanism.html">global-citizen bubble</a>” and value autonomy and mobility over local and national attachments, community and belonging. </p>
<p>The reality is far more nuanced and complex. </p>
<h2>Cosmopolitans come from many backgrounds</h2>
<p>May’s “citizen of nowhere” comment caused widespread controversy. There was a <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/theresa-may-sparks-twitter-backlash-over-citizen-of-the-world-remark-in-conservative-party-a3361701.html">backlash on social media</a> and critique from <a href="https://medium.com/@tristanjakobhoff/on-being-a-citizen-of-nowhere-282a4ee81365">Londoners</a>, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a9f91acc-8fb7-11e6-8df8-d3778b55a923">journalists</a>, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-mein-kampf-adolf-hitler-nazi-vince-cable-liberal-democrat-conservatives-a7825381.html">rival politicians</a>, and the philosopher <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37788717">Kwame Anthony Appiah</a> – who has <a href="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/448846">long challenged the assumption</a> that cosmopolitans are rootless. </p>
<p>Those who embrace cosmopolitan values or see themselves as “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-36139904">global citizens</a>” come from a broad range of social backgrounds and from all over the world, constituting not one, but many tribes. These include <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8676.1999.tb00176.x/full">working-class labour migrants</a>, lower-class <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8676.2010.00126.x/full">Creoles in Mauritius</a> as well as young people who have <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691830903426838">moved to study</a> and globally mobile, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-0374.2010.00298.x/full">middle-class career professionals</a>. </p>
<p>I studied such a group of professionals from 14 different countries including France, Britain, Italy, Mexico, the US, Azerbaijan and Finland, who are living and working in Amsterdam. My research showed how they construct and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726717714042">share a cosmopolitan identity</a> and sense of belonging. This means that they feel less attached to their nation of origin and cultural background. As one British interviewee told me: “I always denounce my nationality.”</p>
<p>But at the same time they also maintain their different national or ethnic identities and cultures – albeit as ingredients in what some of them called the “melting pot” of their diverse community. They embrace the idea of being a “global person” who has lived in different places and who does not identify with either home or host country. As one French interviewee put it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I go home to France, the only people I can relate to are people who have also lived other places, who have been abroad. There is this new nationality which is globalism, you know. I have a French passport, but I don’t feel French. I have lived in Holland for 15 years, but I don’t feel Dutch either.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This however does not mean they are rootless. They are proud “Amsterdammers” who have put down roots in the city and call it home. They have become a new kind of “local” – and live lives just like other middle-class professionals. They work, become unemployed, change careers, buy homes, get married and start families, mostly of mixed nationality. Some have Dutch partners, but many are of other nationalities. They form strong and lasting friendships with people from all over the world that often endure when people move on to other places. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193184/original/file-20171103-26462-1grouc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193184/original/file-20171103-26462-1grouc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193184/original/file-20171103-26462-1grouc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193184/original/file-20171103-26462-1grouc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193184/original/file-20171103-26462-1grouc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193184/original/file-20171103-26462-1grouc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193184/original/file-20171103-26462-1grouc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fitting in.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Not a byword for ‘openness’</h2>
<p>Some of the people I interviewed referred to their identity using terms such as a “non-nationality” or “an international nationality”. Such a sense of belonging produces its own “us-versus-them” dynamic, in which “them” refers to people who are seen as “monocultural”, or “too narrow-minded” and “can’t cope with people from different cultural backgrounds” as some interviewees described to me. This is not an attitude of unlimited openness. </p>
<p>Nor does identifying as a citizen of the world necessarily involve allegiance to humanity as a whole, or to one definition of global culture. This is a cosmopolitan identity that is local and grounded. It takes shape in the context of diverse social networks in specific places, often in urban environments. </p>
<p>As one interviewee with a mixture of Tanzanian, Ugandan and German backgrounds explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I surround myself with people from everywhere generally speaking. I don’t know any other way than being with people from different places.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Opportunities to be part of diverse, international communities are predominantly accessible in larger metropolitan cities. For those who do not have access to such social networks, a sense of non-belonging might become dominant. Some of the people I interviewed talked about their experience of “monocultural environments” and it was consistently a negative one. </p>
<p>They talked about feeling uncomfortable, not fitting in and feeling like they couldn’t trust anyone. One for instance had lived for a short while in a town in Switzerland where her husband is from and where there was little diversity and no international community. Before long they moved on to Sydney, Australia. </p>
<p>Feelings of non-belonging can further intensify when a rhetoric of exclusion based on national identity gains ground, such as in the wake of the Brexit vote in the UK. A recent <a href="https://home.kpmg.com/uk/en/home/insights/2017/08/the-brexit-effect-on-eu-nationals.html">KPMG survey</a> suggested that many highly qualified EU nationals are considering leaving, mainly because of a perception that British society has changed. Half of those surveyed said they felt less valued and welcomed in the UK since the EU referendum.</p>
<p>The ability for people to move to new countries also cannot be taken for granted. <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2015.1005007?src=recsys&journalCode=cjms20">Research</a> shows that visas have become increasingly difficult to secure for those who are not citizens of OECD countries. The election of Trump to the US presidency and the UK’s vote for Brexit mean further restrictions on migration and global mobility are on the cards. British citizens, for instance, are unlikely to retain the right to free movement in the EU after Brexit, and vice versa. </p>
<p>These developments mean that some people who have moved across national borders now face an increasingly uncertain and precarious future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85636/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Irene Skovgaard-Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What does it mean to have a cosmopolitan identity?Irene Skovgaard-Smith, Senior lecturer, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/786872017-06-22T13:35:19Z2017-06-22T13:35:19ZHow European academics are feeling about life in Britain a year after Brexit vote<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174984/original/file-20170621-30227-enjc2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Worrying times. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“I remember very distinctly the morning when the final counting was done,” recalled Joaquín de Navascués Melero. “My wife and I – she is also Spanish and she doesn’t have a British passport – we were sitting in the kitchen after breakfast and saying, ‘well which country do we go to now’?” </p>
<p>For de Navascués Melero, a research fellow in stem cell biology at Cardiff University who has worked in the UK for nine years, the vote for Brexit came as a shock. Since then his life in the UK has been characterised by uncertainty and a heightened consciousness of his own “alienness”. He told me that for him “the most straining point is not knowing how the social situation is going to evolve: We are already seeing an increase in hate crime – that is all very worrying.”</p>
<p>As an academic from another EU country – though he also has a British passport – de Navascués Melero’s experience is not unique. In an <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/great-escape-boltholes-for-academics-fleeing-brexit-and-trump">online survey</a> published by the Times Higher Education magazine in March, academics cited the hostile climate generated by the rhetoric around Brexit and a related sense of “diminished psychological safety” as the main reason for considering leaving the UK. The future rights for EU citizens were also a key concern. Of the 131 who responded, 53% said they were actively looking to leave the UK, while 88% indicated they were more likely to consider doing so in the medium to long term. </p>
<p>In a separate <a href="https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/8584/Academics-survey-shows-little-support-for-HE-Bill-amid-Brexit-brain-drain-fears">YouGov survey</a> for the University and College Union (UCU) published in January, three-quarters (76%) of EU academics indicated that they were more likely to consider leaving the UK as a result of Brexit. A <a href="http://sruk.org.uk/documents/brexit/brexit_declaration_en.pdf">survey</a> by the Society of Spanish Researchers in the UK found that 43% of their members would consider leaving.</p>
<p>Attracting and retaining academics from other EU countries is one of the major issues facing the university sector after Brexit – fears have been raised of a potential “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39693954?SThisFB">brain drain</a>”. The latest indications point to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/03/brexit-universities-academics-eu-rights?CMP=share_btn_fb">a rise</a> in EU academics leaving British universities.</p>
<p>There are three key reasons for this, which were highlighted by representatives of the university sector in <a href="http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/education-committee/the-impact-of-exiting-the-european-union-on-higher-education/written/42873.html">evidence</a> to a recent House of Commons <a href="https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmeduc/683/68302.htm">select committee inquiry</a>. First, the uncertainty over future status and rights of EU nationals in the UK for both staff and their dependants. Second, uncertainty over future access to EU research funding and, third, the perception that the UK is becoming a less welcoming place for people from abroad. </p>
<p>In order to understand more about the impact of the Brexit vote, I spoke with three fellow academics who, like me, come from another EU country: <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/gianluca-demartini-151886">Gianluca Demartini</a> from Italy, a data scientist at the University of Sheffield who has worked in the UK for three years, <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/monica-giulietti-105007">Monica Giulietti</a> also from Italy, an economist at Loughborough University who has worked in the UK for 23 years and the aforementioned <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/joaquin-de-navascues-155980">Joaquín de Navascués Melero</a> from Spain. I asked them to share their personal experiences of how the result of the EU referendum has affected them. Their stories highlight the issues raised by the university sector and provide insight into the personal impact of the climate in the UK since the referendum – and the shift in social status of people from other EU countries living in Britain.</p>
<h2>It’s personal</h2>
<p>“All of a sudden the world has changed,” de Navascués Melero told me. “You may not perceive it all the time, but it’s there … you are more conscious of your alienness after Brexit.” </p>
<p>But the daily experience at university has not changed, as Giulietti, the Italian economist, emphasised: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the kind of environment where we work, we are certainly privileged that there is a sense of being valuable. There is an international environment where it is just normal to have people of all different nationalities. You are respected for your role and no one questions your nationality. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>All the academics I spoke to said they felt valued by their universities. The concern is with what is going on outside this “bubble”. Nationalist and anti-immigration rhetoric in public debate and media coverage has generated a sense of an increasingly alienating climate for those now categorised under a broad label of “EU migrants” and “<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-bill-lord-tebbit-right-eu-nationals-foreigners-comments-a7606456.html">foreigners</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174987/original/file-20170621-27026-1odyja3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174987/original/file-20170621-27026-1odyja3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174987/original/file-20170621-27026-1odyja3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174987/original/file-20170621-27026-1odyja3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174987/original/file-20170621-27026-1odyja3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174987/original/file-20170621-27026-1odyja3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174987/original/file-20170621-27026-1odyja3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Life can be less friendly outside the university bubble.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">via shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While it is often stated that EU migrants are valued for their contribution to society, the use of these terms define them as outsiders. This form of <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011392100048003003">social categorisation</a> can have a significant impact on people’s lives and sense of belonging. As the anthropologist Fredrik Barth (1969) argued in his <a href="http://www.waveland.com/browse.php?t=165">seminal work on ethnic relations</a>, distinctions between people that emerge at the societal level, whether based on nationality, ethnicity or religion, have implications for everyday social interactions.</p>
<p>“It made me feel more different,” Giulietti told me. “Whereas in the past I never had to think about it, I was just a person doing a job and bringing up a family.” In the wake of the Brexit vote she “started questioning things, questioning whether I belong” – even within her British family. She found this feeling, and the new sense of vulnerability that came with it, very surprising. </p>
<p>“I’m a self-confident person,” Giulietti explained, “I don’t easily feel vulnerable, I know I can defend myself in any situation”. But now she feels “more vulnerable” than she has ever been. “Despite the fact that … as a rational person, I know that there is nothing dangerous, there is nothing really to worry about, but things are different.”</p>
<p>Demartini, the data scientist, talked about how he could feel this where he lives – a small town outside Sheffield. He said that when talking to people in the shop for instance, “you get questions, people asking when I’m going to be leaving and this sort of thing. It has happened to me and it has happened to a lot of my colleagues”. </p>
<p>De Navascués Melero said people in the Spanish community had started wondering if they could speak freely in Spanish to their children. “We do, we haven’t changed that, but we look around, just in case,” he said. Other European academics <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/03/07/abused-in-the-street-invited-to-a-brexit-bbq-the-limbo-of-being-german-in-the-uk/">have spoken</a> about being abused in the street for speaking German.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Giulietti raised a different, but related reaction: “The argument everyone makes is: it’s not about you, it’s about the others.” But as she says, there may be another family just down the road telling another European person it’s not about you. “So it could be about me. It depends on who is looking.” </p>
<h2>Cosmopolitan to the core</h2>
<p>The sense of alienation potentially produced by such a climate can change the way you see yourself in relation to society. Until last year, Giulietti was a member of a panel of technical experts for a government department. She was in the process of interviewing for the same role for the following year, but decided to pull out. This was in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37561035">the aftermath of statements</a> by the home secretary, Amber Rudd, at the Conservative Party conference in October 2016 about further curbs on immigration and proposals such as companies having to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/05/amber-rudd-defends-proposal-to-make-firms-reveal-foreign-staff-numbers">publish the number of international staff they employ</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I had been mulling over it because of the rhetoric about foreign workers generally. Basically this idea that all of a sudden people are no longer welcome. Useful members of society, who have been contributing, are no longer relevant. Why would I want to help make decisions for a society where I’m no longer considered a fully functioning member. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Statements by leading Brexiteers such as Michael Gove that the country had had <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3be49734-29cb-11e6-83e4-abc22d5d108c?mhq5j=e3">enough of experts</a> contributed to this feeling. She said: “As an intellectual, as an expert, you are not allowed to talk. Yes, the experts should be challenged, but they should not be kept quiet.”</p>
<p>The Leave campaign and the debate in parts of <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2017/05/16/acrimonious-and-divisive-the-role-the-media-played-in-brexit/">the media</a> was also rife with strong appeals to patriotism. “The concept that seems to be underpinning that rhetoric is difficult to accept,” said Giulietti. “This idea that you have to be attached to the place where you were born.” </p>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-0374.2010.00298.x/full">Research</a> has shown that migrating career professionals from a range of occupational groups often identify with some sense of being “citizens of the world”. <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726717714042">My own research</a> shows that those who develop such a cosmopolitan identity have a strong preference for social environments that are open, diverse and international and tend to feel alienated when the opposite is the case. They embrace the idea of transcending national attachments, but this does not mean they are rootless. They also maintain their national identities as part of a broader cosmopolitan sense of community. </p>
<p>As Giulietti put it: “I see myself as Italian, European, part of a bigger picture than what is being proposed here.” She feels that, in the current climate, the message seems to be that there is something wrong with what she was trying to achieve by going elsewhere to seek opportunities. </p>
<p>De Navascués Melero also emphasised that he is attached to Spain, but not that strongly. “I’m Spanish the same way I’m a man or heterosexual or white – it’s an accident of birth. I build my identity through what I do, not what was bestowed upon me.” As a result of this personal stance he said he found it “uncomfortable to be in a country where identity is something that goes with the accent, with the colour of your skin and with your culture”. He added: “I may be over-dramatic, but unfortunately that is something that is happening worldwide, it’s not just in the UK.”</p>
<h2>Will I stay or will I go?</h2>
<p>Demartini has decided to leave. He is in the process of moving to Australia where he has accepted a new position. He told me that the decision was a complex one.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m not saying that I’m leaving because of Brexit, that would be too strong a statement, but out of many reasons this is one as well. The plan was to stay for a longer period of time. So things have changed. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>De Navascués Melero is staying for now but hinted that his longer-term intention might also change. “We will see how things evolve.” Putting things into perspective, he said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If we were going through this in Spain, for instance, my immediate reaction would be to leave the country as soon as I would have a professional opportunity – and in that sense I feel the same in Britain. So if things become too untenable and this is a society that turns its back on reason, I would just leave. I’m not going to subject my family to that. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For Giulietti, who has a British husband and two daughters, leaving is not on the cards – although she has started to wonder whether this is an environment where she wants to work. Whereas before she would not have thought about moving back to the continent, she now considers it a possibility. “To be honest for many of us there are other opportunities in more fulfilling environments, so I started doubting whether I did want to continue. Certainly, I decided I didn’t want to work for the government.”</p>
<p>The life and career choices of highly skilled migrants tend to be closely associated with the characteristics of the social and organisational environments where they live and work. The professionals who participated in <a href="http://arro.anglia.ac.uk/701781/">my research study</a> actively sought environments that were culturally diverse, international and where cosmopolitan values of openness, tolerance and mutual respect were collectively upheld. </p>
<h2>Citizens’ rights and research funding</h2>
<p>Uncertainty related to future immigration status and rights is also a significant part of the issue – although the impact of this varies depending on individual circumstances. Giulietti decided to apply for permanent residency, but was rejected in the first instance – a relatively common <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/27/rejections-eu-citizens-seeking-uk-residency">occurrence</a>. Along with the extent of the bureaucratic burden, the process can end up feeling like <a href="https://twitter.com/MazzucatoM/status/862927050214080512">an insult</a> as <a href="https://colinrtalbot.wordpress.com/2017/01/25/brexit-and-eu-academics-in-the-uk-breaking-up-is-hard-to-do/">other academics</a> have highlighted. This further contributes to the perception of the UK as an unwelcoming place. </p>
<p>Successful in her second attempt, Giulietti is now in a position to be able to apply for British citizenship. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I feel in the short term it has to be done. I think in light of the fact that I don’t know what is coming around the corner – what if I’m diagnosed with an illness, what if I had to retire? I think it’s better to address it while at least I know what the rules of the game are. Yes, they are likely to sort it out, but it could be in a way that is even more difficult or complicated for all we know. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are other factors influencing the career choices of academics, particularly <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-the-aftermath-for-universities-and-students-61698">access to EU research funding</a> and collaboration, which Brexit has also made uncertain. “If it becomes difficult for the things we need to do in order to have a career, a meaningful, successful career, then I could question the professional choices and also become more open-minded about alternative options,” said Giulietti, who described to me how an EU funding application she was involved in with partners in other European countries collapsed after the Brexit vote. Other scientists have described being <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jul/12/uk-scientists-dropped-from-eu-projects-because-of-post-brexit-funding-fears">dropped</a> from research collaborations and <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/how-brexit-is-changing-the-lives-of-eight-researchers-1.21714?WT.feed_name=subjects_research-management#/scaife">hesitations</a> about applying for EU funding proposals.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"876930207642521601"}"></div></p>
<p>University leaders have called for science and research <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39900509">to be prioritised</a> in Brexit negotiations – in terms of future rights of EU staff and students, access to EU research funding and ensuring that Brexit does not result in barriers to research collaboration. </p>
<p>In a speech in March, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michael Barnier, <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-17-723_en.htm">emphasised</a> the top priority of citizen’s rights on both sides and also indicated the importance of research collaboration. The government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/589191/The_United_Kingdoms_exit_from_and_partnership_with_the_EU_Web.pdf">Brexit white paper</a> set out similar priorities. It also stated that “we will remain an open and tolerant country, and one that recognises the valuable contribution migrants make to our society.” </p>
<h2>An open society?</h2>
<p>While citizens’ rights and the framework for research collaboration are concrete matters for Brexit negotiators, if Britain wants to remain an open and welcoming country, politicians need to take action. Future immigration law and policy should move away from the government’s current <a href="https://www.freemovement.org.uk/hostile-environment-affect/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hostile-environment-affect">hostile environment for migrants</a> and the singular focus on <a href="https://theconversation.com/cut-immigration-and-the-uks-economic-prospects-will-just-get-worse-heres-why-78379">cutting immigration numbers</a>. More also needs to be done to prevent discrimination as well as hate speech and hate crime. And there would need to be a change in rhetoric on immigration and less focus on playing politics with identity. </p>
<p>Brexit will influence the rights, social status, identity, family life and careers of millions of people whose life is intertwined with free movement. The big question is how. For some EU citizens in Britain, the shift in social status brought about by the Brexit vote and the rhetoric around it is profoundly unsettling. It goes to the core of subtle but fundamental matters of belonging, particularly for those who have, perhaps for decades, been fully integrated members of British society.</p>
<p>My own experience echoes much of what the academics I spoke to shared. What I felt that day after the Brexit vote was a sense of loss. Free movement and the rights that come with it has fundamentally shaped my life. Because of it I was able to study, build a career, make a life and a family across several European countries. My British husband is also set to lose his EU citizen rights. For us, this is about what it means to live a life that transcends national borders. Freedom of movement makes it possible in a way that is unique. As a European family we cherish this more than we realised. </p>
<p>Now in light of another unexpected election result, the political debate on Brexit seems to be opening up and shifting. It is becoming even less clear what Brexit will mean and <a href="https://theconversation.com/britains-brexit-options-a-refresh-79364?sr=3">other models</a> are again being discussed. I feel a glimmer of hope, not just for openness and tolerance, but also – however far-fetched – for the preservation of freedom of movement for generations to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78687/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Irene Skovgaard-Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When the political becomes personal.Irene Skovgaard-Smith, Senior lecturer, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/772732017-06-15T08:41:44Z2017-06-15T08:41:44ZA year after Jo Cox’s murder, Britain’s need for togetherness is stronger than ever<p>Hundreds of thousands of people will picnic with their neighbours across the UK to mark the first anniversary of MP Jo Cox’s murder. <a href="https://www.greatgettogether.org/">The Great Get Together</a> has sparked renewed interest in togetherness, reinforced by Cox’s <a href="https://www.jocoxfoundation.org/the-issues/">declaration</a> that: </p>
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<p>We have more in common than that which divides us.</p>
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<p>The event, on June 17 and 18, is happening at a time when families, communities and the nation have been left deeply divided by the EU referendum, the snap general election and uncertainty over the direction of Brexit negotiations. Today, more than ever, Britain needs to foster a new sense of togetherness. </p>
<p>People getting together with friends and neighbours to enjoy a shared meal or street party is not a new phenomenon. Street parties inspired by the non-profit <a href="https://www.edenprojectcommunities.com/history">Big Lunch</a> enterprise have attracted at least <a href="https://www.lgiu.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/The-Big-Lunch-feeding-community-spirit-web.pdf">600,000 people a year</a> since 2009. In 2012, 8.5m people took part in the Queen’s Big Jubilee Lunch. </p>
<p>Diverse gatherings allow people to share food and traditions with communities from different backgrounds. As the anniversary of Cox’s death falls in the month of Ramadan, many communities plan to hold a Lunar Lunch or Iftar – the shared feast which takes place to break the fast after sunset.</p>
<p>But can annual get-togethers and temporary festivals stimulate enduring shifts towards more <a href="https://ukcohousing.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/cohousing_shared_futures_final-web.pdf">collective and co-operative ways of living</a>?</p>
<h2>Reconnecting people</h2>
<p>Cox was especially driven to highlight the damaging effects of loneliness. Her plans for a cross-party conversation have been posthumously realised through the work of the <a href="https://www.jocoxloneliness.org/">Jo Cox National Commission on Loneliness</a>. </p>
<p>Loneliness is often caused not by a lack of friends or family but by how <a href="http://blog.ted.com/connection-and-community-the-talks-of-session-7-of-ted2017/">disconnected</a> people feel from others around them. Homes in the UK are conventionally designed to emphasise individual private property. This “hyper-individualised” housing makes it difficult for people to get to know their neighbours, at a time when many more people live alone for much of their life, often lonely or isolated. </p>
<p>Street parties and festivals foster a spirit of togetherness, however fleeting, and this matters to community well-being. Shared meals also feature in collective, cooperative living arrangements, such as <a href="https://cohousing.org.uk/">co-housing</a>. This is a way of living which brings individuals and families together in groups to share common aims and activities while also enjoying their own personal space. </p>
<p>Co-housing communities typically have around 20 to 30 households and may be exclusively for older people or for mixed-age residents. Each household has its own self-contained home but shares in the management of the whole site and a shared “common house”. My own <a href="https://ukcohousing.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/cohousing_shared_futures_final-web.pdf">research</a> suggests how co-housing arrangements can offer a pragmatic utopian solution to severed connections between people and the places in which they live and work. There are currently 20 established co-housing projects in the UK, plus another 12 under construction or with land identified. More than 70 nascent groups, of all ages, are currently seeking to develop a variety of schemes. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Key Themes from the Collaboraive Housing ESRC Seminar Series.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Deep bonds</h2>
<p>Other ongoing <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17535069.2015.1011429">research</a> I’m doing is exploring how self-organising groups form and how these communities cultivate deep and enduring relationships.</p>
<p>Jo Cox would have recognised the shared sense of purpose and mutual support among those putting on and attending the Great Get Togethers. She and her family chose to live in a co-housing-inspired cooperative community of residential and recreational historic boats on the Thames, <a href="http://www.hermitagemoorings.com/">Hermitage Community Moorings</a> (HCM). From the outset, the group’s intention was to create a close-knit community. The practical and emotional benefits of this are evident in the many ways that Cox’s grieving family have been supported by HCM over the past year.</p>
<p>In this way, socially connected communities can provide more effective neighbourly support than conventional streets of houses. They offer <a href="https://ukcohousing.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/cohousing_shared_futures_final-web.pdf">social benefits</a> for members and society at large, such as increased well-being, shared know-how, and mutual care.</p>
<p>Sharing and togetherness are popular buzzwords, and care must be taken to weed out superficial cases of <a href="http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745662501.html">sharing</a> in “counterfeit communities” – where yearning for connection can be manipulated for commercial gain. This is evident in commercial blocks of student bed-sits where “togetherness” is sold by access to a cinema, gym and high-speed wi-fi – rather than by shared responsibility for supporting each other. </p>
<p>If they are to thrive for the inclusive benefit of all members, self-organising communities need to nurture skills of mutual understanding that are neglected in competitive “do-it-yourself” societies. Yet, in the run-up to a weekend of community events, we are witnessing promising green shoots of “do-it-together” conviviality. </p>
<p>The best way to honour the hopeful ideals that Jo Cox and her family have come to represent must surely be to build a lasting legacy from The Great Get Together of more socially connected communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Jarvis receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. She is affiliated as unpaid non-executive Director with the UK Cohousing Network. </span></em></p>Great Get Togethers are being held to mark the anniversary of the Labour MP’s death.Helen Jarvis, Reader in Social Geography, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/719272017-04-10T13:51:01Z2017-04-10T13:51:01ZHow to help migrants foster a new sense of belonging<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163838/original/image-20170404-24768-smbbzn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Extending a welcome to new arrivals. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gemma Thorpe</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Belonging is tricky to define and hard to measure. It’s the product of the stories we construct and the ways we orientate ourselves socially. It involves interactions, both intimate and public, and the evolution of shared habits and perspectives. Unlike the rights of citizenship, belonging cannot be forced nor can it be legally denied or restricted to those who deserve it. </p>
<p>As the writer Salman Rushdie observed while still under the shadow of religious censorship, free societies are <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xaSQHMbcMPkC&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=the+rushdie+letters&source=bl&ots=8aVgmQeL5h&sig=xG7P4ZGYV0ac18zpOX-djwQDehg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiyg6iAw9XSAhVKKsAKHcb7CMcQ6AEIKTAD#v=onepage&q=the%20rushdie%20letters&f=false">“societies in motion”</a>. Their ingredients are varied, their populations are mobile and their ways of belonging are many. </p>
<p>This yardstick of cosmopolitanism has been thrown out by the current politics of barriers and security. For Rushdie and <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/europe/united-kingdom/articles/famous-writers-react-to-brexit/">the many cosmopolitan literary figures</a> who wish Brexit was just bad fiction, cultural friction ignites freedom, not the other way around. </p>
<p>But in this world of closing borders, the state’s new freedom is the ability to keep outsiders out. That way, belonging may be restricted to those who are already inside – and the frequently heralded <a href="https://jeremypaxman.co.uk/book/the-english">English enjoyment in feeling persecuted</a> can be indulged. </p>
<p>It’s not hard to see why the notion of belonging has fallen out of favour in debates on migration. On the political right, this is because it makes “British values” appear parochial and nostalgic for empire. On the left, a local sense of belonging distracts from efforts to address displacement and solidarity that require either large-scale humanitarian responses or <a href="https://qz.com/767751/marxist-philosopher-slavoj-zizek-on-europes-refugee-crisis-the-left-is-wrong-to-pity-and-romanticize-migrants/">wholesale revolutionary tactics</a>. </p>
<p>The result is that in actively plural communities, where belonging really matters to people, it is given scant political attention and minimal cultural representation.</p>
<h2>Making sense of migration</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://www.storyingsheffield.com/project/material-stories-of-migration/">Material Stories of Migration</a>, a creative community project in Sheffield begun in 2015, we have been exploring the complex connotations of belonging. We have found that belonging remains an essential but versatile idea, both for migrants in the UK and the communities in which they arrive. It is often defined as the opposite to the precarious state in which new migrants often find themselves, a feeling of existing “in limbo” even when no longer travelling, as one participant put it. </p>
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<p>During our workshops we explore and document the responses of migrants to common themes including home, maps, journeys and memory. Around half of our participants are refugees or are seeking asylum. Through writing, painting, performance and craft, narratives of exclusion and inclusion emerge, opening up a dialogue with the city of Sheffield and its citizens. </p>
<p>These have included the way it feels for a qualified teacher to struggle to find even a low-skilled job. Or how sensations of loneliness are warded off – through walking, voluntary work, cooking, writing, singing – and how to tell when it’s ok to share distress and difficulty. The loss of home is often as much about linguistic and cultural dislocation as it is about physical separation. The frustration of being “caught between alphabets”, to quote one participant, is also the struggle to inhabit a new language.</p>
<h2>A city of new arrivals</h2>
<p>In spring 2016, the words “I want to belong” were stitched in five languages by as many hands onto a piece of cloth and displayed in a public exhibition. In the post-Brexit moment these benign words appear to spell resistance. They also form the final lines of <a href="http://www.storyingsheffield.com/material-stories-grapes-in-my-fathers-yard/">a poem</a>, “Grapes in My Father’s Yard”, written, performed and illustrated by a group of eight participants, who met weekly for ten sessions. They worked with local artists, academics and students in an open format where there was no planned outcome except the making and unmaking of narratives about living in a new place. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162403/original/image-20170324-12132-vyi8w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162403/original/image-20170324-12132-vyi8w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162403/original/image-20170324-12132-vyi8w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162403/original/image-20170324-12132-vyi8w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162403/original/image-20170324-12132-vyi8w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162403/original/image-20170324-12132-vyi8w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162403/original/image-20170324-12132-vyi8w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Artwork produced during the Material Stories of Migration project.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gemma Thorpe</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some made maps of Sheffield as they see it on which they drew places they remembered, imagined, or would like to find in the city. A refugee from Sudan designed his own luxury hotel, complete with Arabic architecture and football pitch, not far from Hillsborough stadium. </p>
<p>Sheffield is a city criss-crossed with the trajectories of new arrivals, from the Chilean community given sanctuary during the Pinochet years to the Roma who are often mobile between Eastern Europe and the UK, and the well-established South Asian communities. Some of the newcomers to Sheffield have been sent by the Home Office, which has a policy of dispersing asylum seekers across the UK. Compared to bigger urban hubs, however, Sheffield’s cultural diversity has been rather belatedly recognised through the success of Sunjeev Sahota’s novel <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Year_of_the_Runaways.html?id=pp2dBAAAQBAJ&source=kp_cover&redir_esc=y">The Year of the Runaways</a> and the vitality of <a href="http://www.artsontherun.org.uk">local creative collectives</a>.</p>
<p>The aim of our project, which is running again in 2017, is to develop a fuller understanding of the challenges migrants face in adjusting to life in the UK – learning English, studying or training and finding paid or voluntary work. We have found that creative work such as this helps to convey the multi-layered narratives of migration more effectively than just conducting interviews and collecting data can. Creative collaborations such as these promise to develop more productive ways of working with the frictions in our society, promoting belonging as the weaving together of new social patterns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71927/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Veronica Barnsley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Sheffield, a city of new arrivals, creativity is helping newcomers adjust.Veronica Barnsley, Lecturer in 20th and 21st Century Literature, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.