Is belonging always positive? Cultivating alternative and oppositional belonging at university

Abstract

Introduction Student belonging is a hot topic in UK higher education, particularly since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, given the significant disruption to face-to-face education (UPP Foundation, 2022; Wonkhe, 2022). While student belonging is often considered inherently positive, some students ‘actively choose not to belong’ (Gravett & Ajjawi, 2022, p. 1389), and indeed belonging might be harmful to some, particularly marginalised students (Guyotte et al., 2019), as highlighted by many chapters in this book. In this chapter we build on these discussions through an in-depth analysis of three students’ experiences of not belonging – Katherine, Michelle and Khadija (all pseudonyms) – focusing on what we call ‘oppositional’ and ‘alternative’ forms of belonging. We ask: is belonging always positive in UK higher education or is it better not to belong in some instances? Our three case studies are drawn from the Supporting the Identity Development of Underrepresented Students (SIDUS) project, which interviewed 110 ‘underrepresented’ undergraduate students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at two pre-1992 elite UK universities. While most interviewees had relatively straightforward narratives of belonging being positive and not belonging being negative, our three case studies were of students who actively cultivated alternative or oppositional forms of belonging in response to exclusionary university, or disciplinary, cultures. The experiences of Katherine, Michelle and Khadija require more complex understandings of belonging beyond a binary of positive belonging and negative not belonging. To examine their experiences, we draw on Gravett and Ajjawi’s (2022, p. 1386) conceptualisation of student belonging as ‘situated, relational and processual’ and build on discussions of belonging not always being positive, especially for marginalised students (see also Kandiko Howson and Kingsbury, Chapter 1 in this volume). Alongside this, we use sociological and intersectional understandings of belonging and marginality as dynamic processes actively navigated by people, rather than as fixed or deterministic (May, 2011, 2016; Yuval-Davis, 2006, 2011). We begin by defining ‘belonging’ and situating our work within the literature on student belonging in STEM, before discussing our methodology and analysis. We argue that there can be a positive not belonging when students actively reject dominant belonging discourses because of a difference in values or a refusal to hide or change parts of themselves in order to fit in, and conclude with suggestions for fostering a plurality of (not) belongings in UK higher education and beyond.