Belonging is an important counterpart to Inclusion and covers the personal and emotional aspects rather than objective measures. In a sense, where Inclusion relates to measures taken to actively enable everyone to be involved in the learning process and the wider discussions regarding the student experience, Belonging relates to each individual's feelings related to the success of these Inclusive measures.
Belonging is more abstract than other elements of Inclusion, such as Diversity, and can effectively be summed up by the question "Do I belong here?". The answer to this question will be very personal and reflect the experience of each individual, and therefore will reflect the effect of any Inclusivity initiatives in the context of each individual student. A fundamental part of the sense of belonging is whether a person feels other people like them are also in the same environment, and can reflect a whole range of aspects of the individual, including race, class, nationality, age, etc. Therefore an important way to develop a sense of belonging in students is to both encourage a diverse community of students and staff as well as making this diversity more apparent.
Microaggressions are subtle, often unintentional, but still harmful actions or comments that communicate negative, derogatory, or hostile messages to someone based on their identity, such as their race, gender, or religion. These often have the effect of making people feel like they don't belong and aren't welcome in an environment.
It's important to use someone's full name and not to ask racially minoritised people to shorten their name or provide a nick name. Instead, we want people to learn how to pronounce the names of racially minoritised individuals. Our names are important to us, and our names can tell us a good deal about who we are and our background. Say My Name has been created to support student belonging at our institution.
Academic Development & Inclusion Team (ADI) launched a new programme called 'Supporting Minoritised Students Groups (SMSG)' to support College schools and institutes to develop new or sustain ongoing groups.
