Abstract
The matter of belonging to an institution is of prime importance in international schools. If one applies the definition of an international school used by ISC Research, that it ‘delivers a curriculum . . . in English outside an English-speaking country’ (Brummitt and Keeling, 2013), entry to such a school inevitably presents the child with an alien cultural environment. In order to achieve the attachment needed for contentment and learning, a feeling of ‘belonging’ must develop. It is appropriate that Australia, with a national history of population settlement, should take a leading role in the study of ‘belonging’. The contributors to this volume are mainly from Australia and the USA, together with substantial German and British voices. Sources are important, because they frame the meaning, expectations and significance of the ‘belonging’ to a particular child, from a particular family, in a particular situation. Belonging can be seen as the child’s sense of engagement with the school, a personal affective judgment of high significance. This interacts with other elements of social development that are studied in related disciplines.
This compendium is a valuable foundation for research in the area, and beyond. The editors, in a clear introduction, define and locate school belonging as an important element of children’s well-being in school and as a contributor to their mental health, giving opportunities for beneficial interventions. The four sections of the book examine historical perspective, some significant contemporary research, current issues, and possible modes of intervention. The historical account richly reviews the literature of belonging, resting productively on Bronfenbrenner’s socio-ecological representation of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). This provides a very practical framework for discussing the issue in terms of social and administrative context, within which theoretical models can be fitted as they are developed, without the cultural specifics implicit in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The concept of belonging itself is firmly based on Baumeister and Leary’s foundational work (1995), though the literature refers to it in a variety of terms. Correlations with causal and consequential parameters are reviewed, locating belonging in a central position among social, educational and psychological factors.
The section on recent research examines belonging in several valuable contexts. Chapter three looks at factors contributing to ‘school connectedness’, one of the alternative conceptualisations, and explores the relative significance of peers and teachers. Located in Australian secondary schooling, this study offers some enlightening conclusions. ‘School climate’ is the conceptualisation followed in Chapter four, perhaps placing the analysis and possible interventions in a wider arena, including the institution and its administration. In this case the subjects are high school students in the USA, with a focus on the significance of extra-curricular activities and sports. The thoughtful approach shows how this locally specific study can be applied in other educational cultures, and mentions the possibility of relating the outcomes to underlying neurophysiological processes, a potentially rich source of parallel evidence.
Chapter five describes an interesting project to test whether school belonging added much to the predictive power of mental well-being screening that was already being conducted with high school students. The researchers found only minor additional contributions, but believe it is worth exploring more deeply the value of belonging tests as part of a programme which could examine flourishing as well as deficits. An admirable chapter by Due and colleagues dealing with immigrant children in special introductory language units in Australian primary schools is of particular relevance to international schools. Insights brought to this work from the literature deal with issues such as the relative importance of peer support from co-national immigrants and from host country nationals. The problem of varying levels of English was met here by providing digital cameras, suggesting topics for children to reflect on by choosing images, elucidating them by discussion, and analysing themes. While qualitative and highly interpretative research of this kind may lack the rigour of quantitative work, this approach has the great virtue of approaching belonging through the children’s own perceptions, not through their responses to questions constructed by researchers. The results are duly enlightening, and emphasise the need for study of individual cases.
Chapter seven focuses on studies of resilience and its relation to family functioning. Resilience is portrayed as a complex parameter, very reasonably seen as relating to family dynamics, and their interrelation is carefully unpicked. Family functioning was evaluated using the McMaster Model of Family Functioning and its related Family Assessment Device (FAD) (Epstein et al, 1978), whose validity will be examined below. Chapter eight may have been included at a late stage; it shows some need of editing, such as the lack of references for a number of quotations. The authors advance a good case for studying belonging among university students. However, the case is different in so many ways that it merits an edited book of its own, making room for wider perspectives. For example, on the one hand ‘geographic metrics’ of university locations in the USA are suggested as giving significant diversity of experiences, while on the other hand all Chinese students are seen as merely a ‘sub-culture’ of the single category of ‘Asian students’. A separate book could also incorporate the ‘international student’ adjustment literature of authors such as Searle and Ward, beyond the paper already cited (Searle and Ward, 1990).
A trenchant, and in my view admirable, declaration of the complex causality of domestic terrorism opens Chapter nine, clarifying the role that schools do or don’t play in the lives of potential terrorists. It provides an overview of the public perceptions, indicating the dangers of essentialism if we do not analyse the problem in better behavioural and developmental terms. In this otherwise admirable chapter I am surprised that Kahneman (2011) and Haidt (2012) are not quoted on the power of intuition, or Damasio (2018) on the biological role and functioning of affect: they would complement this experienced and authoritative account. The chapter recognises that this is not a central issue and offers no simple solutions, but nevertheless highlights the social need and provides a good foundation for further research.
Chapter ten, examining the significance of transitions between stages of schooling on students with Additional Social Needs, has many virtues, and is admirably discussed. By the authors’ own admission the conclusions suffer from only a small number of cases being found in a substantial overall sample. The focus on transition will be very familiar to readers with an interest in international schools, which adds to the relevance. It is perhaps odd that primary-secondary transition is considered as a singular stage in the educational progress of the child rather than as one particular moment in the childhood-long response to new experiences. Considering the developmental process might place it in a wider context. The book ends with a masterly statement of its aim and range, firmly located in Bronfenbrenner’s model of psychological development (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). That model is then used to lay out a formidable range of evidence-based school practices, with references to their research origins, amounting to an agenda for research and applications. This chapter alone is a tour de force, and a worthy climax to a valuable collection.
Some possible extensions
At several points the authors and the editors remark that a topic has not previously been adequately covered. This serves to remind us that the ‘belonging’ approach is one of a number that are looking at the same human experiences from different angles. I will take a moment to suggest some that complement the excellent work assembled in this volume, and that may indicate lines for future research in international education. One profitable framework for extending this research is Scannell and Gifford’s Place Attachment Theory (2010), which analyses attachment in three respects: the person, the process, and the place, another framework giving opportunities for integrating contextual factors. ‘Belonging’ is the term chosen, rather than ‘school connectedness’, in my view wisely, but it does suggest a greater degree of subjectivity. This could also be explored in terms of its corelative ‘loneliness’, as in the work of Cacioppo and his school (Cacioppo and Patrick, 2008).
A direction in which research might extend from this rich base is to centre on the changes within the user, rather than the alignment with the school. By ‘belonging’ we open ourselves to a set of evaluations and norms which a community has evolved for their way of life; functionally, it apprentices us to a society. It seems likely that there is a reflexive interaction, belonging and sharing values happening cyclically, one enhancing the other, rather than unidirectional causation. Children vary in what they bring to school, and what they find there. In a 13-nation study Berry and others looked at the functioning of immigrant children according to their countries of origin and destination (Berry et al, 2006).
Two significant potential additions that frequently came to mind in reading this volume were the work of Damasio on the mechanism of affective functioning (2018) and of Haidt and colleagues on the contributions of the conscious and unconscious to human behaviour (Haidt, 2012). Their message is that the experience we call ‘belonging’ is an indicator of the emotional attachment to the persons or groups we encounter socially, and hence their power to influence our development.
The role of the international school is to accommodate the exceptional. This book repeatedly deals with minorities within a nation, but to have minorities you must have norms. Jabal’s thoughtful account of student engagement in international schools (Jabal, 2013) borrows the classification of Deveney (2005) which portrays such students as ‘Fourth Culture Kids’. These are not of the home’s nor of the host’s cultural community, nor of any constructed by the school, but floating in a unique value-bubble. Belonging is an eternal mission for these students, separated from many of the normal reference points.
Given that societies are characterised by their norms, the validity of the McMaster Model of Family Functioning and its related Family Assessment Device (FAD) in a culturally plural setting will need careful examination, and possibly adaptation. Explicitly based on a Judaeo-Christian value set (Epstein et al, 1978), it was claimed to be capable of dealing with issues of cultural relativity. Researchers of international schools and their contexts might heed a comment on a Spanish version of the FAD: ‘Theoretical models relating to psychosocial aspects such as family functioning, albeit compatible in some areas, should be viewed with caution in cultures different to that in which the model originates.’ (Barroilhet et al, 2009). For example Morelli and colleagues have recently reviewed cultural attitudes to attachment (Morelli et al, 2017) showing wide variation in non-Western societies.
There is repeated recognition in this book of the need to question the universal validity of theory derived from a limited community. If only such humility were more commonly found. In consequence the book, which inevitably is almost entirely derived from work in national systems, forms a rich resource and a valuable tool for any practitioner or researcher in international education.