Belonging is very close to the idea of feeling safe.
Belonging in School: Resource Introduction Webinar – YouTube
We added quotes from the recently released “Belonging in School – a school-level resource for developing inclusive policies” to our “Belonging” glossary page, to our “Accommodation” glossary page, and to the “The Feeling: Electric Belonging and Soaring Inclusion” page.
The Four Approaches outlined in “Belonging in School” very much align with what we advocate at Stimpunks.
Each approach to planning inclusive policy encapsulates different values and set different goals. They are different angles on inclusion, and pose different questions for your school to address at each stage of the action cycle. The approaches can be used alone, or combined— meaning you would look at multiple, complementary goals and questions at each stage of the cycle.
The four approaches are:
Alcorn, A.M., Zdorovtsova, N., & Astle, D.E. (2023). Belonging in School Part 2: A Practical Guide to Inclusive Policy Planning. Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge.
- Committing to “inclusion-as-belonging”
- Participatory policy design
- Inclusion by design
- Committing to be a neurodiversity-affirmative school
Via
This resource is so helpful for schools.
Four different practical methods to increase inclusion at your school
And an action cycle method to help you pull together a team and make changes
If you are feeling unsure, or frustrated by the mismatch between expectations and the reality of leading a neurodiverse school or classroom in an under-resourced, high-pressure education system
Then this toolkit is here to help with practical suggestions and clear planning steps, which can make a difference for all the varied pupils in your class
Sue Fletcher-Watson on X
Belonging
We recommend that schools adopt a definition of educational inclusion that focuses on, or at minimum includes, pupils’ sense of belonging in their school community. School belonging is an ‘umbrella’ concept, that can include “the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included and supported by others in the school social environment” (Goodenough, 1993, p80), and also whether they “feel that teachers care about students and treat them fairly; get along with teachers and other students, and feel safe at school” (Libbey, 2007, p52). School belonging is measurable, and there is substantial prior research linking it to positive pupil outcomes (e.g. Allen, Kern, Vella-Brodrick, Hattie, & Waters, 2018).
We believe belonging is an essential concept for thinking about inclusion and planning successful policies—so important we included it twice! In addition to adopting a belonging-focused definition of inclusion in Change #1, one of our four planning approaches focuses on facilitating pupil belonging.
As our title signals, we focus on discussing and facilitating inclusion in terms of pupils’ sense of belonging, which is to say learners’ subjective sense of whether or not they are part of their school community, safe, and valued. This connects to a larger research on understanding school belonging, and how it impacts pupils. As discussed in more detail under Approach 1 in the Planning Guidance document, this body of research suggests that it may be an important contributor to pupils’ participation and achievement, rather than following from these later.
Focusing on inclusion-as-belonging emphasises the importance of school experiences, and positions the people in the school community as choice-makers and change-makers. All aspects of school policy matter for inclusion, not “inclusion policies” alone. School culture matters. Neurodivergent children and young people don’t exist in a vacuum, but are strongly affected by the knowledge, beliefs, and choices of those around them. For these many reasons, concepts related to belonging were at the heart of many of the original contributions at the 2022 workshop, and central to priorities for change.
The concept of “belongingness” connects to a larger research literature on school belongingness, how and why it affects pupils, and how schools can actively support belonging (e.g. see Roffey, Boyle, & Allen, 2019 for a very short introduction). This body of research uses a variety of terms, but focuses closely on the ideas put forth by Goodenow and Grady of belonging as “the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included and supported by others in the school social environment” (1993). A related definition by Libbey more explicitly includes some of the interpersonal aspects referenced in discussions of inclusion and belonging, saying it is present when pupils “feel close to, a part of, and happy at school; feel that teachers care about students and treat them fairly; get along with teachers and other students, and feel safe at school” (2007, p52).
Concepts of inclusion-as-belonging help to shift focus beyond individuals, and towards systems, interactions, and school culture. Thus, when we focus our inclusive policy development on belonging, it makes sense to ask questions not only about whether individuals feel like they belong, but what conditions, values, interactions, and activities appear to be facilitating or hindering that, for whom, and why.
Accommodation
Regardless of how inclusion is conceptualised, current practice and policy for including neurodivergent learners has strongly focused on adaptations and supports at the level of the individual. For example, a pupil with a dyslexia diagnosis getting tailored reading instruction, or providing written activity instructions for children with working memory difficulties. Planning and implementing support is often reactive, and focused on “fixing” perceived “problems” (though schools, children, and families may not agree about what is a problem, or what to do). On one hand, this individual-level focus sounds like a logical way to secure the corresponding supports for people’s challenges. On the other hand, this strategy is increasingly unsustainable in the current context, when each classroom will have multiple pupils with neurodevelopmental differences, and multiple sets of mandated supports that may be difficult or impossible to deliver concurrently within existing resources.
Approaching the cognitive, social, and sensory needs of this pupil group in terms of “accommodations” “adjustments” and “exceptions” also unhelpfully obscures the fact that all learners have needs at school. Mainstream education successfully meets the needs of many learners, much of the time. However, “education as usual” isn’t immutable; it represents certain values and choices. Making different choices about teaching and school environments could support a different set of needs as standard, not as exceptions—and hopefully meet more learners’ needs overall. Workshop contributors were strongly in agreement that implementing approaches that meet a wider range of needs can benefit all learners.
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