Cultivating Student Belonging and School Connectedness

The effect on students from the COVID-19 pandemic, violence related to racism, and loss of customary school routines may cause loss of both school connection and a sense of belonging. School nurses can positively influence student belonging and school connection as they encounter students throughout in-person school and virtual school environments. School nurses build connections with students whom they know and outreach to students whom they identify as vulnerable in the areas of belonging and school connectedness. With a mind-set of the Framework for 21st Century School Nursing Practice and in collaboration with a school team implementing a multitiered system of support, school nurses intentionally outreach and cultural sensitivity to grow positive school climate that benefits students.

A Campus-Wide Collaborative Effort to Increase Student Sense of Belonging

This paper examines one university’s experience developing a campus-wide collaborative effort to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King. Recognizing the importance of student participation on students’ sense of belonging, the program planning and events emphasized student involvement. To illustrate the importance of student belonging at the university level, we discuss the universal application of Maslow’s (1954) belonging needs. From there, we explore the theoretical literature by Cooper (2009), Tinto (1993), Astin (1993) and Bandura (1977) on student belonging within higher education. We describe the Dr. King program and analyze it at the programmatic level by applying elements of Kezar’s (2005) model of institutional collaboration in higher education. We conclude by discussing the benefits of student involvement in the planning process and as participants in the program sessions to demonstrate how institutional collaboration that encompasses true student involvement can positively impact students’ sense of belonging at the university level.

Neuroscience, Linguistics and Psycholinguistics Advances Applied to Early Literacy Teaching

I discuss the lack of linguistic and psycholinguistic fundamentals compromising the teaching-learning models of early literacy, as well as the ignorance of reading neuroscience most recent contributions, arguing with linguistic and neuroscience theories about perceptual invariant units, like phonemes and graphemes. I also explain the difference between phoneme and sound and between grapheme and letter as well as the existence of hierarchical linguistic levels. All those fundamentals pave the Scliar Early Literacy System (SSA), applied on an experiment run at Lagarto, Sergipe State, on the Brazilian Northeastern, that showed the lowest scores in the 2016 National Literacy Assessment (ANA). METHOD: José Humberto dos Santos Santana, distance SSA Course student, belonging to Lagarto municipal staff, organized the five researchers group to implement the SSA in two Lagarto schools. Teachers Patrícia Vieira Barbosa Faria and Jaqueline da Silva Nascimento were 75 children teaching pioneers, in February, 2017, using SSA, Module 1, method and materials, focusing on reading learning at the municipal schools Raimunda Reis, RR (two classes) and Manoel de Paula Menezes Lima, MPML (one class). On 2018, the same teachers followed the same children in the 2nd grade, applying SSA, Module 2, method and materials, focusing on writing learning. Educators received continuous distance training, first, fortnightly and, starting in 2018, twice every week: Tuesdays, for educators who worked with 2nd grade children and, on Wednesdays, for 1st grade educators, from Elementary School. Distant classes last one hour and a half each. RESULTS: The 2018 More Early Literacy Program assessment describes the lowest level 1, as the one where children barely identify one word or the other. In this level two Lagarto schools dropped to 8.7 (RR) and 9.1% (MPML), while at the highest level, dealing with children who have a desirable reading performance, they reached the percentages of 34.8 (RR) and 31.8 (MPML). Compare such results with the 2016 National Literacy Assessment (ANA) performance in the State of Sergipe: level 1, 45.28; highest level, 3.02. In 2018, Lagarto Municipal Education Secretariat expanded its adhesion to SSA, reaching an average of 490 children from the 1st (18 classes) and 2nd (3 classes) grades of Elementary School, taking into account reading and writing, respectively. The Secretariat guaranteed the continuous training of 18 teachers who attend the 1st year and the 5 who attend the 2nd year for applying the SSA. In 2019, given the proposal success, more than 1000 children benefited from the project.

Policy or Pathologization?: Questions into the Rhetoric of Inclusion and Acceptance in Schools

In the wake of a study released by the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2012 that focused on student belonging, safety, and inclusion in schools, the Ontario government introduced the Accepting Schools Act (Bill 13), which was successively passed into law that year. As an amendment to the longstanding Education Act, Bill 13 was a turning point for discourse surrounding safe and accepting schools, due to a specific focus on bullying, discrimination, and inclusion in fostering positive school climates. Following the recurrent rhetoric of inclusion, however, Bill 13 – as both policy and practice – failed to locate and identify discrimination and exclusion as both systemic and structural problems. In doing so, Bill 13, and similar inclusive policies to follow, merely advocated for the inclusion of marginalized and “at-risk” students, while continuing to cite and valorize heteronormative, ableist, and colonial values as the benchmark of inclusion and belonging. Using the insights of critical pedagogy, queer studies, and critical disability studies, this paper aims to extend the dialogue of inclusion beyond the student “at-risk,” and instead, examine the ways that policy rhetoric upholds hostile and oppressive school climates. Thus, this paper argues for a critical reexamination of the ways in which colonial, ableist, and heterosexist standards of normality manifest in inclusive discourse and practice. In doing so, schools, policy-makers, students, and staff can move beyond damaging discourses that hinder the positive development of queer, two-spirit, trans, and questioning students, and in particular, students whose queerness intersects with their race, class, and/or disability.

Using virtual and physical learning spaces to develop a successful mathematical learning community, both for on-site and distance provision

This paper considers learning space and its relationship to student belonging and becoming. Student engagement, satisfaction and academic success are outcomes of a supportive learning community which can flourish in a culture of expectation and behaviour created by providing suitable support structures and by considering the effective use of physical and virtual learning spaces. We describe our innovative use of discipline-specific virtual and physical spaces to develop successful mathematical learning communities, in both a UK university where activities are principally face-to-face, and at a South African university where they are mainly virtual. By comparing our practices and spaces, we explore the ‘equivalence of place’ and the roles of academic staff in fostering the development of professional learner identities through each context. Based on evidence from our respective practices, we make recommendations for designing new learning spaces and for making effective use of existing learning spaces. Although this study focuses on mathematics, many of these suggestions can benefit all disciplines.

‘We Belong’: differential sense of belonging and its meaning for different ethnicity groups in higher education

This paper covers two studies that explore student belonging in higher education and how a sense of belonging differs between ethnicity groups. The research took a mixed methodology approach, collecting both quantitative data via a survey and qualitative data via focus groups. Study One explored the differential experiences of belonging via the Belongingness Survey (Yorke, 2016), with a group of 941 students. This was followed by Study Two, which used focus groups to generate a greater understanding of what belonging meant to the students, how belonging developed and to identify barriers to developing a sense of belonging.This work concluded that ethnicity-based differences in students’ sense of belonging are apparent, which mirror the differences that are witnessed at a sector level in degree outcomes. Additionally, belongingness is found to have an unstable nature in that it waxes and wanes, and can be lost or developed at any part of the student lifecycle. Some student-identified initiatives to support the development of belonging are presented. The findings are discussed in the light of the current literature on differential outcomes.

Formative Learning Experiences of Urban Mathematics Teachers’ and Their Role in Classroom Care Practices and Student Belonging

Mathematics teachers’ preteaching experiences as mathematics learners can affect their identity and practice in supporting their own students’ learning and motivation in mathematics. However, little empirical data exist on teachers’ formative experiences to guide these assumptions, particularly how teachers draw on these experiences when teaching, motivating, and caring for underserved students of color. This exploratory sequential mixed-methods study examines the formative mathematical experiences of 12 teachers currently serving Black and Latinx adolescents in an urban school district with concentrated poverty. Semi-structured interviews allowed teachers to reflect on their formative experiences as mathematics students, structured classroom observations assessed their current classroom care practices as teachers, and finally, questionnaires and a standardized mathematics assessment were used to examine their students’ ( n = 329) mathematical outcomes. This integration of methods provided three levels of inquiry for triangulation and interpretation. Results showed that teachers developed an ethic of perseverance through their formative experiences, which closely tied to their mathematics identity. However, teachers’ perceptions on what enabled them to persevere through challenges as students (i.e., people-support vs. personal-initiative) revealed clear differences in the emotional and instructional support techniques they provided in their classrooms and subsequently their students’ sense of belonging in mathematics. Teachers who discussed the role of people-support in their formative reflections were more likely to possess a critical consciousness on the interpersonal and systemic forces that work against Black and Latinx adolescents and thus enact empathetic care patterns. Furthermore, their observed classroom care patterns mediated the relation between their formative experiences and their students’ sense of belonging in mathematics.