This qualitative study sought insights into forced migrant youths’ sense of belonging. The study was part of the Youth Migration Project, an ongoing investigation of how young forced migrants construct their identities, sense of belonging, and future aspirations while perched on the edge of mainstream society – without normative entitlements or a voice in decision-making about their futures. Through purposive and snowball recruitment methods, the project gathered narratives of 52 forced migrant youth aged 11 to 17 who were born in conflict areas of Asia and Africa, primarily in Myanmar, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Iran, and Somalia. In the present study, I focused on the experiences of eight forced migrant female participants living in prolonged displacement in Malaysia. My guiding research question was: How do the processes and experiences of forced migration shape migrant youths’ sense of belonging? Through a mixed-method approach, including a novel, arts-based peer-mediated storyboard narrative method, now known as Storyboard Peers, and follow-up interviews, youth shared their migration narratives, the challenges they faced while living in Malaysia, and their expectations and aspirations for their futures. The theme of safety figured prominently in the girls’ accounts and I constructed the themes of physical safety and social safety to represent the data the girls contributed. The girls’ sense of belonging and feeling at home had a direct relationship with feeling safe, valued, and loved. I also found that their physical and social environments informed their sense of belonging. Sense of belonging is neither a static nor a fixed concept; rather it is a flexible, everchanging, and reconstructed with ongoing, everyday experiences, reflections on the past, and anticipations of what the future could hold. The girls’ accounts conveyed that feelings of “belongingness” and “at home” shifted from tangible places and familiar faces to abstract concepts such as love, peace, and family. Overall, feeling safe and “at home” were rooted in basic needs being met. My findings lead me to call for governments and nongovernmental organizations to significantly reduce the length of time that youth spend in transit, promote safety, combat discrimination, fulfill basic needs, and ensure access to education and healthcare. / Graduate

No description available.

The purpose of the study is to determine whether an instructor’s intentional effort to build community in his/her classroom results in a higher sense of classroom community among students. This study also examined what types of community building activities were conducted by each instructor and measured the students’ responses to each different activity. This was intended to establish a preliminary set of best practices for creating classroom community. A two-part questionnaire, including an adapted version of the Classroom Community Scale, was administered to instructors (n=5) and students (n=113) enrolled in two or four unit courses at California Polytechnic State University. These courses were designed to introduce students to their chosen majors. One-way analysis of variance, and two-proportion tests were used to determine the relationship between instructor intentions and student sense of classroom community, and the differences in student sense of classroom community between courses. Findings indicate that what course a student was in was the significant factor in determining sense of classroom community. Additionally, students accurately perceived their instructor’s intent to create classroom community.

This research presents the daily life experience of the Kuwaiti Bidun people after migration to Sweden and tries to understand how they view their sense of belonging and how they deal with the emergence of new identity formations in their everyday life practices. By taking a closer look at the different modes of belonging and new identity formations in the process of migration for the Biduns, I will analyze how new interactions, new engagements, irregularity and postcolonial roots shape sense of belonging and new identity formations. By using a postcolonial perspective, I will answer the question of how the Bidun’s Bidunness identity experience the sense of belonging and the emergence of new identity formations after migration to Sweden. By conducting semi-structured in-depth interviews with a selected group of the Biduns living in Malmö this thesis aims to understand Bidun’s feelings of sense of belonging and emergence of new identity formations through their eyes. The thesis shed light on the way Bidunness identity represents itself in connections with its previous interactions and the way it experiences a sense of belonging when confronting with its other.

Forskning visar på att individualismen ökar i det svenska samhället. Individen anses idag som både unik och helig vilket även är uppsatsens rubrik som är tagen från ”Nyreligiositet i Sverige: Ett religionsvetenskapligt perspektiv” skriven av Liselotte Frisk. En del av denna individualism är att individen idag plockar ihop sin egen livsåskådning där hen tar element från flera etablerade livsåskådningar och skapar sin egen privata livsåskådning. Multiple religious belonging är ett etablerat begrepp som växer i västvärlden som beskriver denna typ av kombination. Tidigare forskning visar på att läroböckerna i religionskunskapen inte aktualiserat och förklarat denna typ av öppenhet och individualism. Det är detta dilemma som denna uppsats utgått ifrån. Med hjälp av en innehållslig idéanalys har tre läroböcker för religionskunskap 1 analyserats utifrån det teoretiska ramverk och läroplanen för religionskunskap 1. Teorierna som uppsatserna kommer att använda är livsåskådningsbegreppet och multiple religious belonging som innebär att individen tar in element från flera livsåskådningar i sin egen livsåskådning. Det finns dock inget tydligt mål för att begreppet multiple religious belonging måste framställas i läroplanen även om fenomenet växer idag i västvärlden. Det var också i den linjen resultaten visade sig. Samtliga läroböcker konstaterade att individer är olika och tillhör olika livsåskådningar. Man kunde se vaga framställningar som skulle kunna kopplas till multiple religious belonging men i och med att det var vaga och inte systematiskt uppradade blir det en didaktisk begräsning för läraren att anamma begreppet i sin undervisning, eftersom läraren behöver leta efter underliggande budskap som kan kopplas ihop med begreppet, vilket det ofta inte finns tid för. Det åläggs ett praktiskt ansvar både av läraren och av läroböckerna om de väljer att anamma begreppet eller inte

Research from higher education and social psychology has recognized feelings of belonging and perceptions of inclusion as important factors within the university student experience. Yet little research has examined the extent to which interracial contact may correspond with belonging and inclusion in the university setting. In the present study, I conduct secondary analyses of a 2016 campus climate survey of undergraduate students to examine the associations between interracial contact and three indicators of belonging and inclusion (e.g., feeling a sense of belonging, perceiving the campus to be welcoming, perceived university commitment to inclusion) among undergraduate students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, and among racial and ethnic minority students (ALANA students) regarded as international students and as U.S. residents. Results indicate, overall, White students tend to report greater feelings of belonging and perceptions of inclusions compared to their ALANA peers. Greater interracial contact was generally associated with greater feelings of belonging and greater perceived institutional commitment to inclusion, yet these effects tended to be stronger among ALANA students than among White students. Black students tended to report lower feelings of belonging in comparison to other ALANA students; at the same time, no significant interactions were observed between interracial contact and racial/ethnic status among ALANA students from Asian, Black, Latino/a, or multiracial backgrounds. In addition, international ALANA students tended to report lower levels of belonging as compared to ALANA students regarded as U.S. residents. However, there were no significant interaction effects of interracial contact and international ALANA status in predicting students’ feelings of belonging and inclusion perceptions. The present study highlights how students’ racial/ethnic status can shape belonging and inclusion perceptions on the university campus, and how associations between interracial contact and key indicators of inclusion may vary among students whose racial and ethnic groups occupy different status positions in U.S. society.

Despite its imprecision, social capital is a powerful tool for examining how and why particular forms of social interaction lead to the health and well-being of communities, organisations, and even businesses. Community cohesion as a policy prescription emerged in the UK, following the social disturbances in certain northern cities and towns in the summer of 2001. The official reports into these disturbances identified lack of social interaction between different ethnic groups as a principal cause. Furthermore, social housing was seen as a key factor that could be used to prevent future disturbances. Accordingly, this research focuses on how the assets and forms of social capital act as good predictors of community cohesion, in the context of the New Labour government¿s aim to use social housing to build cohesive communities. Unless otherwise specified, references to ¿the government¿ throughout this thesis apply to the New Labour administration that came to power in the UK on 2nd May 1997 and ended with the Coalition administration led by the Conservatives on 11th May 2010. This thesis makes use of the linearity between the goals of social capital and the policy aims of community cohesion to match forms of social capital to specific forms of social interaction, in six selected social housing schemes in Bradford. Bradford was one of the cities affected by the disturbances in 2001. Analysis of the forms of social interaction in the case study housing schemes shows that bridging and linking forms of social capital, which could lead to enduring cohesive communities, were mainly latent in the schemes. This suggests that the peaceful co-existence in the case study housing schemes today is, possibly, postponed social conflict in the long term.

Embedded in debates concerning Britishness and citizenship, this thesis considers the influence of the dualistic tradition on citizenship theory and highlights the exclusionary nature of citizenship as founded in this paradigm. Working within this dualistic paradigm means that the lives and practices of being a citizen are not captured, creating an exclusionary cycle whereby the concept excludes the lives of many citizens, and many individuals are excluded from being a citizen as defined by the concept. This thesis used participatory, visual and online methods to explore belonging and exclusion with young people around England. Informed strongly by the field research, this thesis analyses citizenship as defined through dualistic and embodied paradigms and considers the potential of an embodied concept of citizenship for engaging young people.

People with visible facial difference often experience other people reacting negatively to their appearance. For many, this is part of everyday life. Research has identified social support as critical in adaptation processes. This is the case both for those whose facial difference was apparent at birth, and those who experienced injury or illness. There is a lack of a comprehensive theoretical construct for exploring how personal communities provide resources needed by adults to live well with visible facial difference. The combination of semi-structured interviews and creation of personal community maps provided opportunities to explore the interplay between respondent accounts and patterns of relationships people are embedded within. Seventeen adults with visible facial difference and two unaffected ‘significant others’ were interviewed. The findings provide evidence that personal communities are important social spaces for negotiation of resources that enable adults to feel connected, valued and safer within wider communities. Social support was not described as a property of the individual, but as experienced with combinations of people that change according to situation, place, or time. A diversity of personal community patterns were found, largely consistent with findings from Spencer and Pahl (2006), with one variation which increased intimate support. Some personal communities were less supportive and consequently people were at risk of isolation. Processes within personal communities were helpful both in dealing with negative social environments and in helping establish different versions of ‘normal’ life. The importance of focussing on social contexts, when seeking to understand how people live with visible facial differences, is highlighted. / University of Bradford Studentship

Research on adolescents sense of belonging in schools is plentiful; however, there is an obvious lack of research conducted in early childhood years. Friendship groups have been shown to be impactful in helping students feel like they belong in school. This study explores how kindergarteners talk about friendship in the context of belonging in a two-way immersion school. I pay particular attention to the role primary language plays in developing a sense of belonging and friendships at school. The 19 kindergarteners in this study were interviewed in small linguistically homogenous groups of 2 or 3 students. Each focus group was shown 2 puppets that represented one English-speaking and one Spanish-speaking child. Students were then asked to help each puppet understand what it would be like to be a new student at the school and what they would need to know to fit in. Findings reveal that these students recognize the utility of language for doing schoolwork and fitting into the institution of schooling, but did not highlight the importance of language as a necessary tool for making friends. Students focus on the importance of understanding the social context in order to belong at school. More research is needed regarding how school programs and social context influence the development of friendship.