Making sense of belonging

While reading an extract from Strayhorn  (2016) on ‘Transitions to Higher Education – In search of belonging’, many questions were queuing up in my mind. The most striking included the belongingness of what — culture, organisation or sector? Where does that belongingness come from?

For me, belonging is a two-way process where both parties — if the terms are right in this context — feel they complement each other. For this purpose, they need to work (be) together for a certain period of time. Then, apparently, they feel a kind of association in that particular situation. There are many factors, such as psychological contracts, relationships and, obviously, culture. Given that all the criteria are met – all parties feel they belong. Those unseen and unworded contracts and relationships are vital in this process. Culture? Yes, the seen or unseen, and open or hidden phenomena in the part of culture play quite a significant role, too. Then the feeling of belongingness comes – whether they are belonged or not. Do the people feel like citizens of the organisation or not?

Having expressed this much thought, I want to go back to the extract — the sense of belonging. I understand that Higher Education (HE) is a culture. The culture of education, the culture of oldness, the culture of hidden things, the culture of pressure, and so on. It is really difficult to understand, particularly when the culture seen from the outside may not be seen from the inside. There could be a distorted vision and granted assumptions. Even though culture is the toughest thing to change in any organisation, it can be changed – I have experience in a few organisations. Being an observer of the HE culture, I am not sure where I should look for belongingness. Is it about changing others and feeling belonged or changing yourself and feeling belonged?

When I see colleagues leaving one institution and joining others – I start feeling that I belong to the ones I am working with and also the ones who have recently joined.