Overview

Belonging is the feeling of being valued and connected to one’s environment. A belonging story is a short story about a challenge that a person encountered in their academic or professional career and that made them worry about the extent to which they belonged, or fit in, in a particular context, and how they minimized that concern over time. When matriculating students have the opportunity to read, and reflect on, belonging stories attributed to upper-year college students, randomized-controlled field trials show that this can change their interpretation of early challenges in the transition to college, reducing academic outcomes gaps between racialized and White students, women and men in male-dominated engineering programs, and first- and continuing-generation students (Murphy et al. 2020; Walton et al. 2007, 2011, 2015; Yeager et al. 2016). It could also be particularly impactful if instructors share their own belonging stories.

Belonging uncertainty is likely to arise at transition points during the semester. Several instructors who have used belonging stories in their courses have noted that they are particularly impactful during the first week of class, when introducing difficult concepts or after a return from a break.

What does the practice look like?

There are several key steps to crafting a belonging story.

Step 1: Identify the Belonging Concern

Identify the Belonging Concern that you want to address in your course. Start your belonging story by considering the aspect of belonging that you want to address. Rest assured that is OK if you want to address more than one. Some common aspects of belonging to consider are:

Academic difficulties
Numeric underrepresentation on campus
Difficulty making connections with professors
Financial strain
Difficulty navigating University resources
Trouble making friends

Step 2: Determine when you will share your Belonging Story

Belonging stories are especially impactful at transition points within the semester

Step 3: Identify the Components of your Belonging Story

Consider a time when you questioned your belonging, but were able to resolve those feelings over time. If you do not feel comfortable sharing your own belonging story, consider the experiences of past students to help craft the story. Ask yourself the following questions:

What about the experience made you question your belonging?
How did the belonging concern get resolved? Did it pass with time? Or did you take actions that helped to resolve, or lessen, your belonging uncertainty over time?

If you choose to share a belonging story from past students, in addition to or instead of sharing your own, consider reaching out to past students asking them to share their experiences. Provide them with the prompt above, and let them know that you won't include any identifying information about them when you share their observations with your current class. Once you have feedback from past students, use the key ingredients in step 4 to craft a belonging story that captures one or more of the main themes you heard from past students.

Step 4: Craft your Belonging Story, and Practice it!

Keep these key ingredients for an effective belonging story in mind as you craft your message:

Briefly describe an experience that evoked belonging uncertainty
Acknowledge belonging concerns as real and valid
Communicate that it is common to questioning one's belonging when facing challenges
Describe how belonging improved over time, with the use of agentic steps to build relationships and ties to the campus community

Note that sometimes, belonging concerns arise as a result of structural inequalities, or experiences of discrimination or prejudice. In these instances, it is important to explicitly acknowledge that these concerns are real and will not go away fully as a result of the student taking agentic steps, but that the core ingredients of the belonging message can still resonate with students, and they can come to feel a greater sense of belonging over time. Before putting your belonging story into action, make sure to practice sharing it out loud. A key component of a successful belonging story is that it is perceived as natural and authentic. While each of our belonging stories are authentic, for many of us it does not feel immediately natural to share them aloud. Practice your belonging story until it feels fairly natural to you.

Resources to support implementation

CTC Belonging Quotes for TXMI - many examples from students.
Guided activity for professional development groups

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