What would have to change for a BIPOC student, family, or colleague to say "I am this school" rather than "I go to this school"?
Why the question matters
The belonging literature is blunt about this. Baumeister and Leary treat belonging as a fundamental human motivation rather than a climate nicety; Osterman shows that adult behavior is one of the main things deciding whether a student feels part of a school community; Walton and Cohen show that doubt about fit can drag achievement down on its own, with no change in ability. In a school whose student body has changed faster than its habits, that feeling is where access either turns into equity or stops short of it. A student can be admitted, enrolled, and welcomed and still be positioned as a guest in a house whose rules were written before they arrived.
What I currently think
I want our BIPOC community members to feel that they are the school — not visiting it, not standing outside some old bubble that used to hold it. We are the community sitting in this room, and we are beautifully diverse, and that is what makes us beautiful. Saying that is the easy part. Belonging of that kind is produced by structures rather than statements: who is on the faculty, who counsels, who coaches, who leads a division, who sits on the board, whose families the office assumes when it writes home, who is in the advanced section, who is asked to explain themselves, and who is never asked to speak for their race. So the working version of this question is which of those structures I can actually help change, starting with the ones within reach of a single classroom.
What I am reading & learning
- —Baumeister & Leary (1995), The need to belong
- —Osterman (2000), Students' need for belonging in the school community
- —Walton & Cohen (2007), A question of belonging: Race, social fit, and achievement
- —Strayhorn (2012), College students' sense of belonging
- —Harley (2023), The lived experiences of Black girls at a predominantly White independent school
Related journal entries
- The Dreamkeepers, and the teachers I want to learn from
I love Gloria Ladson-Billings, and the Dreamkeepers chapter of her culturally relevant teaching work most of all. She found the teachers who actually succeeded with African American children and studied what they did. That is the standard I want my research measured against — and the reason narrative inquiry is the right method for it.
- Fair is not the same as equitable
My whole career has been about growing in my understanding of fairness versus equity. Fair treatment is not necessarily equitable treatment — students need scaffolds that help them reach their best potential — and I want to understand what that requires in the elite school where I teach.