Project

Our work understanding students’ experiences of belonging started with a conceptual study in 2021, and a follow up SRHE funded research project in 2022 ‘Belonging to and beyond higher education in hybrid spaces’. We were interested in how the Covid pandemic had changed the experience of higher education for the vast majority of students, from how they were taught and learned course content, to how they interacted with faculty, peers and others across the institution. In particular, we were interested in how students experienced the notion of belonging, and how experiences of belonging had also been disrupted by Covid-19, resulting in the need to reconsider what ‘belonging’ means. Our aim was to enable educators to better support the learning and wellbeing of future students, as well as to understand more about how belonging is conceptualised.

The research involved collecting digital vlog interviews, at the University of Surrey, and Deakin University Australia, to understand:

  • How is the concept of belonging understood within contemporary higher education?
  • How has belonging and the spaces in which students belong changed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the move to online, and now hybrid learning?
  • How, and in what ways, should educators foster students’ sense of belonging and engagement going forward?

In 2023 we secured ESRC Impact award funding, to create visualisations for educators to use

We hope that the outputs from this project will promote knowledge exchange, engage stakeholders, and build new relationships between educators, researchers and students both nationally and internationally. The ultimate goal of our work is to improve students’ senses of belonging, wellbeing and academic success during their university experience.

You can find out more about our published research here:

Gravett, K. and Ajjawi, R. (2022). Belonging as situated practice. Studies in Higher Education 47 (7), 1386-1396. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2021.1894118

Gravett, K., Ajjawi, R. and O’Shea, S. (2023) Topologies of belonging in the digital university. Pedagogy, Culture & Society. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2023.2256342

Ajjawi, R., Gravett, K. & O’Shea, S. (2023) The politics of student belonging: identity and purpose. Teaching in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2023.2280261 Winner of the Teaching in Higher Education Editors’ choice award 2024.

Gravett, K., Ajjawi, R., Bearman, M., Holloway, J., Olson, R., and Winstone, N. (2023) Belonging as flickering and in flux in academic work: a collective biography, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2023.2258095

Gravett, K & Ajjawi, R & O’Shea, S (2023, 23 May). Many ways students can belong: Belonging and non-belonging really do matter but more attention is needed to unpack this complex area. Campus Morning Mail. Available from https://campusmorningmail.com.au/news/many-ways-students-can-belong/.