Belonging and Identity in STEM Higher Education

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Howson, C. K. and Kingsbury, M. (eds). 2024. Belonging and Identity in STEM Higher Education. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800084988

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800084988

Contents

List of figures and tables

List of contributors

Introduction

Camille Kandiko Howson and Martyn Kingsbury

Part I: What is, and is not, belonging?

1 STEM ways of thinking: belonging and identity

Camille Kandiko Howson and Martyn Kingsbury

2 Hospitality and belonging: insiders and outsiders in STEM higher education

Sheena Hyland

3 Belonging and engaging for successful transition to university

Alison Voice, Rob Purdy, Nicolas Labrosse and Helen Heath

4 Is belonging always positive? Cultivating alternative and oppositional belonging at university

Órla Meadhbh Murray, Yuan-Li Tiffany Chiu and Jo Horsburgh

5 Inclusive excellence in STEM higher education

Camille Kandiko Howson and Martyn Kingsbury

Part II: Identities and belonging in STEM

6 Understanding the sense of belonging and social identity among STEM students during the Covid-19 pandemic

Liisa Myyry, Veera Kallunki and Ganapati Sahoo

7 Inside(r) out(sider): building belonging and identity in the non-disciplinary classroom

Elizabeth Hauke

8 Barriers to belonging for racially minoritised students in STEM higher education

Billy Wong, Meggie Copsey-Blake and Reham El Morally

9 Stereotypes and their influence on belonging in UK physics

Amy Smith

10 An intersectional lens on the formation of STEM identity: beyond gender

Salma M. S. Al Arefi

11 Higher education teachers’ identity development and sense of belonging

Jo Horsburgh

Part III: Supporting belonging and alternative ways of engaging

12 Active learning and Japanese students’ belonging in mathematics, physics and chemistry

Fujio Ohmori, Jun Saito and Hisao Suzuki

13 Belonging in the ecotone: a case study from a STEM higher education context

Luke McCrone

14 Can science be inclusive? Belonging and identity when you are disabled, chronically ill or neurodivergent

Jennifer Leigh, Julia Sarju and Anna Slater

15 Exploring students’ sense of belonging to engineering in authentic interdisciplinary project-based teamwork

Lillian Y. Y. Luk, Inês Direito, Kate Roach and John Mitchell

16 How to meet students’ need for belonging during undergraduate research engagement: a case study within medicine

Belinda Ommering and Friedo Dekker

17 Fostering belonging through student–staff research partnerships

Ian M. Kinchin, Karen Gravett, Cathy Derham and Alfred Thumser

Index

List of figures and tables

Figures

6.1 Perceived interest and relevance of studies, peer support and constructive feedback according to sense of belonging in 2020 and 2021

12.1 Relationship between pedagogy and conceptual understanding in mathematics

12.2 Relationship between pedagogy and conceptual understanding in physics

12.3 Relationship between pedagogy and conceptual understanding in chemistry

13.1 Photograph of refurbished raked lecture theatre showing connect-booth seating converted from original row-by-row seating

13.2 Photograph of refurbished informal learning space adjacent to the lecture theatre in Figure 13.1, entered through the door on the right, showing a variety of furniture types and writing surfaces

15.1 Adaptation of activity theory

17.1 A concept map to summarise the main findings of an evaluation of a student–staff research partnership project

Tables

3.1 Summary of aspects explored in survey questions

6.1 Sense of belonging in 2020 with no pandemic effect and 2021 with pandemic effect in frequencies

6.2 Sense of belonging according to students’ trust that teachers have faith in their abilities in 2020 and 2021

6.3 Examples of responses to the three open-ended questions

12.1 Perceived pedagogy in basic science subjects

12.2 Self-assessed understanding of each discipline’s basic concepts

12.3 Self-reported grade distributions of the three subjects

12.4 Perceived usefulness of the subject to subsequent study

12.5 University selectivity

12.6 Correlation matrix of variables for mathematics

12.7 Correlation matrix of variables for physics

12.8 Correlation matrix of variables for chemistry

15.1 Student demographics

List of contributors

Salma M. S. Al Arefi is an award-winning lecturer in Engineering Education and Academic Lead for Inclusivity and Student Success in the School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences at the University of Leeds. She is a Fellow of the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence and a Fellow of Engagement Excellence at the University of Leeds. Her pedagogy is largely concerned with inclusive STEM education.

Yuan-Li Tiffany Chiu is a Principal Teaching Fellow in Educational Development at the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship, Imperial College London. She is Programme Director for the Postgraduate Certificate in University Learning and Teaching and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Tiffany has led multiple projects in partnership with students and staff on inclusion and diversity. Her teaching and research interests include student transition and progression, learning and teaching in higher education, assessment and feedback practice, and identity development.

Meggie Copsey-Blake is a doctoral candidate in the Institute of Education, University of Reading. Meggie’s research is mostly focused on the sociology of education, especially in terms of social justice, identity and educational inequalities, and in the contexts of STEM and language education.

Friedo Dekker is Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in the Center for Innovation in Medical Education, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), the Netherlands. As coordinator of the theme ‘scientific training and engagement’ he contributed to a new curriculum of the Bachelor of Medicine degree at LUMC and designed a course for first-year medical students to become actively involved in doing real research.

Cathy Derham is Associate Professor and lead for student experience in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Surrey. She has been actively involved in numerous student–staff partnership programmes within the university over a period of several years.

Inês Direito is Assistant Researcher in the Centre for Mechanical Technology and Automation (TEMA), University of Aveiro, Portugal, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Engineering Education (CEE), University College London. Her research interests include empathy and emotions in engineering education, diversity, equity and inclusion in engineering education and professional practice, and the skills development and career pathways of engineering students.

Reham El Morally is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, American University in Cairo. Reham’s research has focused on understanding gender dynamics in Egypt, specifically how and why Egyptian women have the de facto status of second-class citizens. She has worked on projects on climate justice and resilience among indigenous communities, as well as on student experience in STEM higher education. She is an advocate and activist for gender equality and equity.

Karen Gravett is Associate Professor in Higher Education and Director of Research at the Surrey Institute of Education, University of Surrey. Karen’s work focuses on learning in higher education, and she explores how we can think with theory about key areas of higher education, for example student engagement, belonging and literacy practices.

Elizabeth Hauke is Principal Teaching Fellow in the Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication, Imperial College London. The founder and leader of the Change Makers programme, Elizabeth designs and delivers optional student-centred, interdisciplinary active-learning modules to all undergraduate students across the College, challenging students to engage critically with themselves, each other and the world around them. Her research uses ethnographic and autoethnographic approaches to understand authenticity and inclusivity in the classroom.

Helen Heath is Professor and University Education Director (Quality) in the School of Physics at the University of Bristol. Helen has held various educational roles within the School and has been a Fellow at the Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching (BILT) with a focus on programme-level assessment. She is a member of the University Quality Team responsible for reviewing the quality of provision across the University at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Jo Horsburgh is Principal Teaching Fellow in Medical Education in the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship at Imperial College London. Jo is an experienced higher education teacher, educational developer and educational researcher, with a background in psychology and education. She is Director of Postgraduate Studies for the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship and previously acted as the course lead for the MEd in University Learning and Teaching course at Imperial College London. Jo is also the lead for education research within Imperial’s Medical Education Innovation and Research Centre; her research focuses on the professional identity development of teachers in both higher education and medical contexts, learning from role models, and addressing inequalities in higher education.

Sheena Hyland is Assistant Professor in Educational Development at University College Dublin. She teaches on the University Teaching and Learning programmes and supports academic staff to enhance teaching, learning and assessment practices. Her research and teaching interests include the philosophy of higher education, academic professional identities, phenomenology, student well-being, and inclusive and culturally responsive approaches to teaching, learning and assessment in higher education.

Veera Kallunki is Docent (Pedagogy of Science) at the Centre for University Teaching and Learning (HYPE) in the University of Helsinki, where she works as a Senior Lecturer in University Pedagogy. She received her PhD in physics and education in 2009. Her interests include qualitative research and university teaching, especially in the STEM fields. Her recent research addresses, for example, digital learning and collaborative learning in higher education.

Camille Kandiko Howson is Associate Professor of Education in the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship, Imperial College London. Camille is an international expert in higher education research, focusing on student outcomes and learning gain, equality and social justice, and quality, performance and accountability. She works to support high-quality and high-impact pedagogical research and to collaborate with colleagues to conduct discipline-based educational research. Camille’s current research focuses on comparative higher education, the curriculum, learning analytics, academic motivation, prestige and gender, and intersectionality in research design.

Ian M. Kinchin is Emeritus Professor in Higher Education at the Surrey Institute of Education, University of Surrey. His current research centres on the idea of the ecological university. Ian has a PhD in science education and a DLitt in higher education.

Martyn Kingsbury is Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship, Imperial College London. Martyn is Professor of Higher Education, an educational developer and experienced teacher from a biomedical background. He has designed and delivered workshops, courses at undergraduate and master’s levels and is an experienced PhD supervisor. He is an experienced researcher with interests in the research and teaching nexus, liminality, authenticity, concept mapping of new learning, student engagement, identity and belonging and educator identity, in STEM contexts.

Nicolas Labrosse is Senior Lecturer in the Astronomy and Physics Education group at the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow. Nic co-chairs the Astronomy and Physics Education group. He is passionate about learning and teaching in higher education, supporting students, and working with them to build an environment that enables everyone to flourish as an individual. His educational research focuses on student transitions, belonging and engagement, and on meaningful and inclusive assessment.

Jennifer Leigh is Reader in Creative Practices for Social Justice at the University of Kent, Canterbury. A chemist turned sociologist, her current work includes addressing and highlighting lived experiences of intersectional marginalisation. Her books include Borders of Qualitative Research: Navigating the spaces where therapy, education, art, and science connect (2024, Policy Press), Women in Supramolecular Chemistry: Collectively crafting the rhythms of our work and lives in STEM (2022, Policy Press), Embodied Inquiry: Research methods (2021, Bloomsbury Academic), and Ableism in Academia: Theorising lived experiences of disability and chronic illness in higher education (2020, UCL Press).

Lillian Y. Y. Luk is Assistant Professor in Higher Education at the Teaching and Learning Innovation Centre (TALIC), University of Hong Kong. She was a research fellow at UCL Centre for Engineering Education (CEE) before joining the TALIC and is now an honorary research fellow of the CEE. Her research interests lie in the areas of students’ sense of belonging in engineering, global competency development, and sustainability literacy and assessment literacy in generic skills development.

Luke McCrone is Research Associate in the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship at Imperial College London. Luke is a Research Associate at the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship (CHERS). With a background in student representation and a PhD focusing on student engagement with learning spaces, he is committed to enhancing the student experience. Luke has taken a holistic mixed-method approach to understanding the impact of education infrastructure on learning behaviour and has collaborated with staff and students to develop more effective STEM learning environments.

Órla Meadhbh Murray (she/they) is Assistant Professor in Criminology and Sociology at Northumbria University, Newcastle, and Institute for Medical Humanities Fellow at Durham University. Their research focuses on inequalities in higher education, the politics of organisations and knowledge production, and queer feminist approaches to emotional work. She is the co-founder of the UK and Ireland Institutional Ethnography Network, regularly runs institutional ethnography training workshops, and is the author of a forthcoming monograph: University Audit Cultures and Feminist Praxis: An institutional ethnography (2024, Bristol University Press).

John Mitchell is Professor of Communications Systems Engineering in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and Co-director of the Centre for Engineering Education, University College London. His research focuses on curriculum development, and in particular the use of problem- and project-based learning to develop transferable skills.

Liisa Myyry is Senior University Lecturer in the Centre for University Teaching and Learning (HYPE), Department of Education, University of Helsinki. She is docent in social psychology. Her research interests are moral development, personal values and the digitalisation of teaching and assessment practices in higher education. Her recent research includes instructional justice and teachers’ assessment-related emotions.

Fujio Ohmori is Professor in the Institute for Excellence in Higher Education, Tohoku University, Japan. He has been at the Institute since April 2016, after 13 years as a professor at another two institutions, Kumamoto University and then Tokyo Metropolitan University. Before joining academia, he worked at Japan’s Ministry of Education for 20 years. He received a PhD from the Institute of Education, University of London, in 2008. His research interests lie in the sociological analysis of higher education.

Belinda Ommering is a Senior Researcher in the Research Centre for Learning and Innovation, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, the Netherlands. Belinda obtained her PhD at the Center for Innovation in Medical Education, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC). Her PhD research focused on stimulating intrinsic motivation for research among medical students through intra- and extracurricular research experiences. Her current research focuses on the development of professional research competence among teachers of higher professional education.

Rob Purdy is a member of the Physics Education Research Group in the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds. Rob has many years’ experience teaching physics. He is the Director of Student Education in the School and, as such, has oversight of the whole student journey, from transition to graduation. Having previously held the role of admissions tutor he has a deep understanding of the different routes taken by students before they enter university.

Kate Roach is Associate Professor (Education) at UCL Engineering, University College London. She has a background in science and technology studies and her interests focus on the development of student skills and attributes associated with responsible engineering and sustainable practice, and on the ways in which these can be supported within curricula.

Ganapati Sahoo is Senior Researcher in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Helsinki. He is a researcher and STEM teacher in applied mathematics and physics, and is docent in physics. Besides his regular research work on fluid motion and statistical physics he has an interest in pedagogical research in higher education with a focus on student well-being.

Jun Saito is Associate Professor, Agri-information Technology Center at the Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Japan. Professor Saito specialises in theoretical physics and physics education research. He received his PhD in 2009 from the Graduate School of Science at Hokkaido University, where he conducted research in particle physics. He has worked on programmes for supporting undergraduate students’ learning and faculty members’ professional development, at Hokkaido University and at his current institution. His areas of expertise cover technology-based teaching, learning analytics, and quantitative evaluation of learning outcomes in higher education.

Julia Sarju is Lecturer in Chemistry, Year One Leader and Chemistry Disability Contact in the Department of Chemistry, University of York. In addition to award-winning teaching of physical and inorganic chemistry, her work focuses on challenging inequities in chemistry education and careers.

Anna Slater is Royal Society University Research Fellow and Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Materials Innovation Factory, University of Liverpool. Anna is interested in developing tools to make the discovery and production of functional materials more efficient, in sustainability in research, and in research culture and ecosystems.

Amy Smith is a PhD student in the Department of Physics at Imperial College London. She is interested in the study of physics culture and in understanding how social norms influence students’ behaviour and sense of belonging. Before beginning her PhD Amy was a secondary physics teacher. During her time in teaching, Amy completed an MA in education, focusing on the backgrounds of women in physics and on how access to science capital influenced their decision to take the subject.

Hisao Suzuki is Professor in the Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, Japan. Professor Suzuki specialises in theoretical physics and education. He earned his PhD from Nagoya University and then worked as an Assistant Professor at Osaka University. In 1995, he moved to Hokkaido University as an associate professor and was promoted to professor in 2009. He served as the deputy director of the Hokkaido University Organization for the Advancement of Higher Education from 2013 to 2023.

Alfred Thumser is Senior Teaching Fellow in Biochemistry, School of Biosciences and Medicine, University of Surrey. He has been nominated for the University of Surrey Students’ Union ‘Best Lecturer’ award and the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences award of ‘Best Lecturer’ in the biological sciences.

Alison Voice is Professor of Physics Education in the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds. She is head of the Physics Education Research Group in the School of Physics and Astronomy, which she founded in 2016. She is a National Teaching Fellow and has wide experience of teaching in STEM, in supporting students in the transition to university and in preparing them for their onward journey after graduation.

Billy Wong is a Professor in the Institute of Education, University of Reading. Billy’s areas of research are educational identities and inequalities, especially in the context of higher education and STEM education. His research has explored the changing views and experiences of university students and staff, as well as young people’s science and STEM aspirations, through the notions of science capital and the ideal student.

Introduction

Camille Kandiko Howson and Martyn Kingsbury

Our goal for this book is to celebrate, promote and provide a critique of belonging in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) higher education. We offer 17 chapters, a compilation of theoretically grounded empirical research, conceptual analysis and case study contributions, to explore what is unique about STEM educational environments. Leading scholars, teachers, practitioners and students explore belonging and identity in STEM fields, and how these are impacted by wider sector and disciplinary changes and by the post-Covid-19 pandemic higher education context. The book explores the role of STEM pedagogies in facilitating belonging, variable impacts across student characteristics, and the particular experiences STEM students face in their higher education studies. Three parts explore the notion of belonging (and what it is not to belong), address the role of student identities in supporting and challenging belonging, and present evidence-based findings on how belonging and inclusive excellence can be supported in STEM fields. The book is grounded in offering examples from research to apply in practice for teachers, academics, students and those leading and supporting STEM higher education.

Student enrolments in STEM are rising and are widely promoted by governments looking to develop future generations of scientists and innovators. While education, research and development in STEM are promoted for their innovation and economic potential, there are wide variations in students’ experiences, well-being, sense of belonging and feeling part of a community. Decades of efforts to promote diversity and inclusion have had less success than hoped and inequalities remain in access, progression and success in STEM fields, as well as in academic STEM careers. Much of the current literature and policy effort focuses on outreach and admissions: getting diverse students interested in, prepared for, and qualified to enter, STEM courses. Awarding gaps, differential outcomes and student survey feedback across a wide range of characteristics show that getting students in is not enough; students’ experiences on their courses, in their institutions and in their engagement with the wider community matter as well. Enabling equitable outcomes is fundamental to expanding and diversifying STEM fields in order to better equip society to tackle the complex problems we all face.

In this book we focus on the STEM context. Across disciplines, STEM courses are often seen as more demanding, competitive and highly structured, leaving students with fewer opportunities to customise their educational experience or make connections across their institution. As noted in Chapters 11 and 16, we include medicine in our discussion of STEM (but use the more common STEM abbreviation, rather than STEMM, throughout). Medical student training has significant overlap with other STEM fields, particularly biology and life sciences, and is increasingly interrelated with broader STEM fields through bioengineering and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care.

In Belonging and Identity in STEM Higher Education we draw on mathematical and scientific ways of thinking and research specifically in STEM fields to explore student and staff identities and belonging. The book highlights current research, ongoing initiatives, large-scale efforts and localised practices that explore how to enhance and support belonging in STEM, and how identities are shaped and nurtured in STEM contexts. Throughout, we highlight the integration of staff and student belonging and identity, with a selection of chapters focusing on each as well as several that bring them together, particularly through partnership projects and co-designed activities. We take a critical lens, exploring how students may prefer not to belong, or strategically choose not to identify closely with their STEM educational experience. Through evidence-based chapters, case studies and practical examples, this book sets a new agenda for research on belonging in STEM higher education, taking an intersectional approach to identity, including neurodiversity.

Overview of Belonging and Identity in STEM Higher Education

The following chapters detail how students develop their STEM identity and agency towards belonging and not belonging, and how belonging can be supported. Part I explores ‘What is, and is not, belonging?’. This part explores the efforts that higher education institutions make to address a sense of belonging and what it means to belong in STEM fields. How students are welcomed and encouraged to feel part of their course is considered. More critical questions are asked about what it means not to belong, and how staff and students can have agency to choose not to belong, and where belonging may not always be a positive experience. As STEM fields adopt new pedagogical approaches, students have new responsibilities and staff take on new roles.

Chapter 1 argues that the abstract, mathematical and logical ways of thinking present in STEM can provide a basis for belonging in STEM, going beyond socio-demographic characteristics. This STEM identity is linked with how one sees the world and interacts with others. Examples of STEM ways of thinking in practice show how this idea can be the basis of staff and student engagement, authentically collaborating through their disciplinary ways of thinking. In Chapter 2 Sheena Hyland applies a complementary philosophical lens to the exploration of belonging. The theme of hospitality, and the tensions of ‘guest’ and ‘host’ this concept raises, are a useful way to consider who is welcomed into STEM communities and who feels part of them already. The notion of a guest – welcomed but not feeling or being ‘at home’ – offers a critical view of belonging. Ong et al.’s (2017) ‘counterspaces’ are referenced as sites of refuge for underrepresented students. This theme is carried forward in Chapter 4 by Murray et al., who address not belonging and consider students who actively choose not to belong (Gravett & Ajjawi, 2022; Guyotte et al., 2021;). It offers an important reminder that belonging can be an exclusionary practice for some individuals and is not always a positive good in and of itself.

The important aspect of transition is covered by Voice et al. in Chapter 3, providing an overview of seminal literature in the field. Research before and during the Covid-19 pandemic draws on social, cultural and science capital to explore factors that affect belonging during the transition phase of students’ higher education experiences. The authors identified the impact of students’ backgrounds impacting on their sense of belonging but also noted the breadth of measures of success across student characteristics, linking with Chapter 4 and the multiplicity of students’ views. Chapter 5 explores the notion of inclusive excellence and through four case studies shows how delivering this requires a reconceptualisation of success, incorporating wider indices which embed inclusion as an essential aspect of excellence. This aligns with the position that variety within a context or system is beneficial, increasing both opportunities to respond to changing contexts and challenges and the resilience of the whole (Kinchin, 2024).

Part II covers ‘Identities and belonging in STEM’. It explores how students and staff articulate their identities and belonging in STEM fields. Chapters explore stereotypes, barriers and challenges across specific groups, including underrepresented students, and across intersectional identities. Other chapters explore how staff create and support a sense of belonging through innovative pedagogical approaches and how these can impact on their own sense of belonging and identity in STEM fields.

In Chapter 6, Myyry et al. examine STEM students’ sense of belonging and social identity in Finland. Similarly to Chapter 3, the study covers students in the years before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors noted that students’ social identity came from interaction and collaboration with peers; they discuss ways to enhance their sense of belonging. Chapter 7 links with the insider/outsider themes from Chapter 2, presenting an enhanced ethnography of a unique teaching practice. Hauke explores the changing identities and development of belonging of STEM students in a non-STEM module, detailing the interactions between staff and students, and how they can challenge each other in carving out and forming their sense of who they are and where they belong. Horsburgh in Chapter 11 also explores teachers’ identity development, analysing the identity challenges faced by those in STEM-based teaching-focused roles and linking this analysis with how they can be supported.

Chapters 8, 9 and 10 delve into the thorny issues faced by those underrepresented in STEM. Wong et al. in Chapter 8 identify the barriers faced by racially minoritised students. The lived experience of students highlights ongoing racism in STEM and the need for a longer-term approach of decolonisation to support the belonging of all students. In Chapter 9 Smith details the experiences of a group of women physics graduates and the stereotypes that remain endemic. The women reported how they had to negotiate aspects of their identity to try to belong; tackling the masculine discourse in physics is recommended as a way to address these challenges. In Chapter 10 Al Arefi highlights the importance of intersectionality in exploring women’s experiences in STEM. Similarly to Chapters 8 and 9, she highlights how being underrepresented in STEM can inhibit staff and students from being their authentic selves, particularly in the engineering community.

The third part focuses on ‘Supporting belonging and alternative ways of engaging’. It explores pedagogical philosophies and practices that support belonging in the context of specific STEM disciplinary traditions, and alternative ways in which students may choose to engage with their higher education experience. These chapters report how research on identity and sense of belonging can align with discipline-based research, as well as how high-impact practices, such as project-based learning, student research opportunities and staff–student partnerships impact students’ sense of belonging. Innovative methods, approaches and findings that can enhance belonging are identified across a range of STEM disciplines.

In Chapter 12, Ohmori et al. show the positive benefits of active learning in STEM. They explore how widespread innovative pedagogies are across Japan, and how they are experienced by students. This research links cognitive and affective aspects, their intersection being key to developing students’ science identity and sense of belonging. Luk et al. present findings in Chapter 15 on the impact of undertaking project-based teamwork in engineering. This high-impact practice shows benefits for supporting students’ sense of belonging. Chapter 16 by Ommering and Dekker provides another example of a high-impact practice in action, detailing the experiences of medical students undertaking undergraduate research opportunities. Self-determination theory provides a lens to explore how to motivate students to undertake research.

McCrone presents in Chapter 13 a case study that highlights the importance of physical spaces in fostering students’ sense of belonging, which links with themes presented in Chapter 7. He draws on his experiences as a student, as a student representative and of working with students as partners to detail the complex relationships between space, ownership and belonging. Picking up on this practice, Chapter 17 focuses on the outcomes of staff–student research partnerships in STEM, and how new epistemological approaches can challenge and extend the identities of those in STEM. In this chapter Kinchin et al. identify themes noted in Chapters 7 and 11 of the issues faced when those in STEM go beyond the confines of their discipline. This is complemented by Chapter 14, in which Leigh et al. explore challenges presented by doing science when disabled, chronically ill or neurodivergent. Linking with the intersectional lens offered by Chapter 10, they present a number of case studies addressing these challenges, and further emphasise that there is not a ‘one size fits all’ answer to supporting belonging in STEM.

These chapters lay a path for future learning, which offers education in more hybrid and flexible formats, for an increasingly diverse student body, while adopting the more active and discovery-based ways of learning required if students are to engage effectively in an uncertain and rapidly changing world. Acknowledging existing identities, building science identities and developing STEM ways of thinking provide ways to enhance both staff and student belonging in STEM higher education.

References

Gravett, K. & Ajjawi, R. (2022). Belonging as situated practice. Studies in Higher Education, 47(7), 1386–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2021.1894118.

Guyotte, K. W., Flint, M. A. & Latopolski, K. S. (2021). Cartographies of belonging: Mapping nomadic narratives of first-year students. Critical Studies in Education, 62(5), 543–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2019.1657160.

Kinchin, I. M. (2024). How to Mend a University: Towards a sustainable learning environment in higher education. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Ong, M., Smith, J. M. & Ko, L.T. (2017). Counterspaces for women of color in STEM higher education: Marginal and central spaces for persistence and success. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 55(2), 206–45. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21417.

Part I

What is, and is not, belonging?

1

STEM ways of thinking: belonging and identity

Camille Kandiko Howson and Martyn Kingsbury

Introduction

In science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields with positivist approaches and a focus on numerical data, there can be assumptions that the disciplines are unemotional and impersonal. The need for mathematical competency, logical thinking and disciplinary contexts can be barriers to engagement and belonging in STEM. The data-led narrative is not centred on people, as it is in many social science and humanities fields, and this can marginalise the individual. At the same time, the knowledge of the subject can be synonymous with identity: to be a physicist is to know physics. Discourse in STEM fields, on what can be seen as impersonal, detached and cognitively challenging data, influences both access to data and who engages with it. STEM fields are highly competitive, especially for grant funding and journal publication, where cutting-edge research can have a short shelf life, and this competitiveness can provide a perverse pressure that inhibits open collaboration. There can be self-fulfilling stereotypes in STEM fields, such as the isolated geek who struggles with communication, personal interaction and team working. However, such characteristics of STEM fields can make it easier for some individuals to identify with these fields and can help them feel part of a scientific community, proud of the challenges they have had to ‘overcome’ to be there.

STEM ways of thinking, such as those underpinning abstract and complex mathematics, can form the basis of new ways of conceptualising belonging for both staff and students. Logical, abstract ways of thinking posit that it is these ‘ways of thinking’ that signal belonging (not who you are), which opens up new approaches to tackling belonging, not yet belonging, and the acceptance of ‘not-belonging’. This raises further points about who has access to that knowledge and how it is shared.

We argue that this mathematical way of thinking can be a key feature of belonging in STEM, going beyond socio-demographic and cultural differences, possibly even transcending them. We see parallels with ways of thinking in music, where groups of musicians can communicate in embodied behaviours, language and sounds. Similarly, there are ways of thinking for artists, enabling them to connect with one another through presentational forms and expression. These communities may be exclusionary for outsiders, leading to stereotypes or pejorative statements such as ‘He is an artist; his head is always in the clouds’ and ‘She is always tapping away with her fingers, seemingly somewhere else’. Yet within these communities individuals can be supported, with ways of thinking and being that connect people despite where they came from, how they speak or how they dress. Fostering logical, abstract and mathematical ways of thinking and being can be a mechanism for fostering such belonging in STEM.

This chapter sets the scene for the book, interrogating and critiquing notions of identity and belonging. Drawing on STEM education research before, during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, and recognising policies normalised as a response to crisis, can have positive and negative effects on students’ experiences. Online lectures can be alienating for some, but can facilitate access for others, such as students with a disability or who are learning in a language that is not their native tongue. The pandemic raised questions about what it is people belong to and what powers they have to influence where and how they belong, or do not belong. This chapter provides a catalyst to inform this debate.

Belonging and identity

Sense of belonging has emerged as one of the most significant factors in students’ success and their retention in higher education (Brooman & Darwent, 2014; Hausmann et al., 2007; Kuh et al., 2010; Thomas, 2012). Research on sense of belonging in the US-based literature is dominated by the exploration of differences across demographic and social characteristics (Strayhorn, 2018). Much of the UK-based research is small-scale (Trowler, 2010), set in specific institutional contexts (Ahn & Davis, 2020; Read et al., 2003; Wilcox et al., 2005) or focused on expectations, attitudes and satisfaction (Harvey & Drew, 2006). And although the curriculum is seen as being at the heart of addressing differential sense of belonging, as it is the one thing students have in common (Kift et al., 2010), there is little discipline-specific literature on the topic: most explore it holistically across the sector or an institution. This chapter, and those in this book, address some of these gaps in the literature.

In 2020 the US-based National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) presented findings from its new survey items on sense of belonging, which asked to what extent students agreed or disagreed with the following:

1. I feel comfortable being myself at this institution.

2. I feel valued by this institution.

3. I feel like part of the community at this institution.

They found belonging to be positively correlated with engagement, retention and perceived gains from higher education in first-year students (National Survey of Student Engagement, 2020). Through subsequent years, they found a lower sense of belonging for students studying STEM subjects, first-generation students, multiracial students, and non-cisgender identities, and a higher sense of belonging for women and students without a declared disability (Lofton & Kinzie, 2022). They found that students involved in campus activities had a higher sense of belonging, and noted that this ‘strengthens the value of student life and co-curricular programming and the benefit of investments in creating a vibrant campus life’ (p. 15). The impact of socio-demographic characteristics highlights that sense of belonging is not solely an ‘institutional’ concept but is experienced differently by different groups of students. Furthermore, the difference across subjects suggests the impact of the curriculum and disciplinary culture, which indicates the importance of students’ academic experiences in their sense of belonging.

Following the pandemic, a large-scale project on belonging in the UK identified four pillars that form the foundation of belonging: connection, inclusion, support and autonomy (Blake et al., 2022). They identified a reciprocally beneficial relationship between these areas, with development in any one facilitating and enhancing the