School belonging should be a priority across every facet of education. The research on school belonging for positive student outcomes has been widely accepted and findings demonstrating its role as a protective factor against mental ill health and youth suicide are too compelling to ignore. In an age where it has been argued that academic achievement is prioritised over wellbeing, the editors bring the importance of school belonging back to the fore in educational policy and planning. This book is the most comprehensive compendium of its kind on the topic of school belonging. A foreword by Professor John Hattie of The University of Melbourne sets the scene for an engaging look at how school belonging is quintessential in contemporary schooling. Contributors are: Kelly-Ann Allen, Christopher Boyle, Jonathan Cohen, Crystal Coker, Erin Dowdy, Clemence Due, Jonathan K. Ferguson, Sebastian Franke, Michael Furlong, Annie Gowing, Alun Jackson, Divya Jindal-Snape, Andrew Martinez, Daniel Mays, Vicki McKenzie, Susan Dvorak McMahon, Franka Metzner, Kathryn Moffa, Silke Pawils, Damien W. Riggs, Sue Roffey, Lisa Schneider, Bini Sebastian, Christopher D. Slaten, Jessica Smead, Amrit Thapa, Dianne Vella-Brodrick, Lea Waters, Michelle Wichmann, and Holger Zielemanns.

Reflecting on life is important, but what if it leads to discovering your sense of belonging? Dr. Ilene Winokur discovered a sense of belonging by sharing her story about life in two very different places she calls home: Buffalo, NY, and Yarmouk, Kuwait. Friends and family were curious about how she adjusted to life in two different cultures. Dr. Winokur realized that belonging was the common theme and her journey guided her to make connections between belonging, learning, and improving our well-being. Journey to Belonging: Pathways to Well-Being is filled with self-reflection and the author's discovery about different stages of belonging (self, personal, and professional) that can influence how educators approach teaching and learning. Dr. Winokur's research-based explanations about belonging and well-being include why our highest goal is to leave a legacy and a better future for all. Journey to Belonging will help you define YOUR sense of belonging by answering: What is self-belonging and why do we all need it? Why is personal belonging an essential element of learning? How can educators find their sense of professional belonging? What does it mean to become a "good ancestor"?

Welcome to Identity Safe Classrooms! In identity safe classrooms, students facing negative stereotypes or viewed as different are "seen," accepted, and valued for who and what they are. Their identity is embraced as an asset not a barrier for school success. Identity safety is a research-based set of practices that counter the harmful effects of stereotype threat and allow our students to reach their full capacity for learning, foster positive relationships, and better appreciate the full spectrum of human differences. The second of a two-volume set, Identity Safe Classrooms, Grades 6-12, is a call for educators to come together and realize a vision of schools as transformative places of opportunity and equity for all students. Inside you’ll find: Design principles for promoting belonging and a welcoming classroom environment Compelling evidence from identity safety research on ways to mitigate stereotype threat along with counter-narratives that challenge societal biases about gender, race, and other differences Pragmatic strategies for student-centered teaching, including trauma-informed practices, that hold high expectations and validate each student’s background as a resource for learning Vignettes with concrete examples and try-it-out activities and prompts for self-reflection Devour Identity Safe Classrooms, adopt its practices, and soon enough you’ll inspire in all of your students a greater sense of empathy and agency in their educational experiences. "Dr. Becki Cohn-Vargas along with Alexandrea Creer Kahn and Amy Epstein show us the intersections between adolescent identity development, racial identity development, and social-emotional development so we know how to use the diversity in classrooms as our strength." -Zaretta Hammond, Author of Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain "Identity Safe Classrooms should be in the hands of every educator who walks into a school. It′s clear and accessible, grounded in research, thought-provoking and engaging, and actionable, and fills a crucial gap in our resources for creating just and liberated schools." -Elena Aguilar, Author of The Art of Coaching "The authors have done an excellent job showing how an identity safe classroom integrates the growth mindset in a secondary school. When students feel accepted and valued, when they feel safe learning from mistakes and encouraged to continually grow as learners, they can reach their highest potential." -Carol Dweck, Stanford University

This book examines belonging as a key protective factor for enhancing resilience for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families. It focuses on understanding intellectual and developmental disabilities and resilience from systemic and social-ecological perspectives, emphasizing the roles of professionals, families, and communities in combating long-standing segregation and health disparities experienced by individuals and families. The volume explores the dimensions of belonging across diverse professional fields using a person-centered approach that acknowledges the significant lifelong role of family members and emphasizes reflective practice for professionals. Chapters present research and innovative strategies to facilitate belonging when working alongside individuals and families. Key areas of coverage include: Family-professional partnerships in working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities across lifespan and community contexts. Spirituality, mental health, and identity in persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Research ethics and design in working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The diverse needs, desires, and preferences of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The importance of individualized planning and approaches in fostering belonging for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Belonging and Resilience in Individuals with Developmental Disabilities is a valuable resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians, therapists, and related professionals in developmental psychology, family studies, public health, and social work as well as related disciplines, including education policy and politics, behavioral health, and psychiatry.

This practitioner-focused guide to creating identity-safe classrooms presents four categories of core instructional practices: Child-centered teaching ; Classroom relationships ; Caring environments ; Cultivating diversity. The book presents a set of strategies that can be implemented immediately by teachers. It includes a wealth of vignettes taken from identity-safe classrooms as well as reflective exercises that can be completed by individual teachers or teacher teams.

Draws from a wide research base documenting best practices for identity safety, including inclusive classroom practices, positive teacher-student relations, diverse and challenging tasks, and the use of student diversity as a resource Includes interactive activities and tools for professional development, linking strategies to theory Offers guiding principles to help leaders stay true to the core values of equity and identify safety, equipping leaders with the adaptive expertise needed to confront evolving challenges Covers professional growth models for teachers, counselors, campus supervisors, and other school staff Tackles the difficult issue of equitable data collection; shares principles, systems, and best practices for assessment that take bias, stakeholder voice, and universal design into account.

Discovering Successful Pathways in Children's Development provides a new perspective on the study of childhood and family life. Successful development is enhanced when communities provide meaningful life pathways that children can seek out and engage. Successful pathways include both a culturally valued direction for development and competence in skills that matter for a child's subsequent success as a person as well as a student, parent, worker, or citizen. To understand successful pathways requires a mix of qualitative, quantitative, and ethnographic methods—the state of the art for research practice among developmentalists, educators, and policymakers alike. This volume includes new studies of minority and immigrant families, school achievement, culture, race and gender, poverty, identity, and experiments and interventions meant to improve family and child contexts. Discovering Successful Pathways in Children's Development will be of enormous value to everyone interested in the issues of human development, education, and social welfare, and among professionals charged with the task of improving the lives of children in our communities.

Everyone can imagine their future self, even very young children, and this future self is usually positive and education-linked. To make progress toward an aspired future or away from a feared future requires people to plan and take action. Unfortunately, most people often start too late and commit minimal effort to ineffective strategies that lead their attention elsewhere. As a result, their high hopes and earnest resolutions often fall short. In Pathways to Success Through Identity-Based Motivation Daphna Oyserman focuses on situational constraints and affordances that trigger or impede taking action. Focusing on when the future-self matters and how to reduce the shortfall between the self that one aspires to become and the outcomes that one actually attains, Oyserman introduces the reader to the core theoretical framework of identity-based motivation (IBM) theory. IBM theory is the prediction that people prefer to act in identity-congruent ways but that the identity-to-behavior link is opaque for a number of reasons (the future feels far away, difficulty of working on goals is misinterpreted, and strategies for attaining goals do not feel identity-congruent). Oyserman's book goes on to also include the stakes and how the importance of education comes into play as it improves the lives of the individual, their family, and their society. The framework of IBM theory and how to achieve it is broken down into three parts: how to translate identity-based motivation into a practical intervention, an outline of the intervention, and empirical evidence that it works. In addition, the book also includes an implementation manual and fidelity measures for educators utilizing this book to intervene for the improvement of academic outcomes.

Gold Nautilus Award Winner: “A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the mess we are in today and what we need to do.” —George Halvorson, former CEO, Kaiser Permanente We are living in a time of mounting political segregation that threatens to tear us apart as a unified society. As we become increasingly tribal, the narratives of life that we get exposed to on a daily basis have become echo chambers in which we hear our beliefs reinforced and others’ beliefs demonized. At the core of tribalism exists a paradox: As humans, we are hardwired with the need to belong, which ends up making us deeply connected with some yet deeply divided from others. When these tribes are formed out of fear of the “other,” on topics such as race, immigration status, religion, or partisan politics, we resort to an “us versus them” attitude. Especially in the digital age, when we are all interconnected in one way or another, these tensions seep into our daily lives and we become secluded with our self-identified tribes. In this book, global diversity and inclusion expert Howard J. Ross, with JonRobert Tartaglione, explores how our human need to belong is the driving force behind the increasing division of our world. Drawing upon decades of leadership experience, Ross probes the depth of tribalism, examines the role of social media in exacerbating it, and offers tactics for how to combat it. Filled with tested practices for opening safe and honest dialogue in the workplace and challenges to confront our own tendencies to bond automatically with those who are like us—or seem to be—Our Search for Belonging is a powerful statement of hope in a disquieting time.

This book explores how belonging differs based on students’ social identities, such as race, gender, sexual orientation, or the conditions they encounter on campus. Belonging—with peers, in the classroom, or on campus—is a critical dimension of success at college. It can affect a student’s degree of academic adjustment, achievement, aspirations, or even whether a student stays in school. The 2nd Edition of College Students’ Sense of Belonging explores student sub-populations and campus environments, offering readers updated information about sense of belonging, how it develops for students, and a conceptual model for helping students belong and thrive. Underpinned by theory and research and offering practical guidelines for improving educational environments and policies, this book is an important resource for higher education and student affairs professionals, scholars, and graduate students interested in students’ success. New to this second edition: A refined theory of college students’ sense of belonging and review of current literature in light of new and emerging theories; Expanded best practices related to fostering sense of belonging in classrooms, clubs, residence halls, and other contexts; Updated research and insights for new student populations such as youth formerly in foster care, formerly incarcerated adults, and homeless students; Coverage on a broad range of topics since the first edition of this book, including cultural navigation, academic spotting, and the "shared faith" element of belonging.