When some students encounter obstacles in school or university, they may take it as a sign that this whole education is not for them. This may be especially true for students from racial minorities.
Greg Walton, a psychology professor at Stanford University, said the same could be true for challenges such as flaws in federal financial aid forms and student registration systems. “Research shows that everyone finds such things intrusive, but for first-generation college students, they start to cause anxiety about belonging, because there’s an uncertainty about belonging. Because it is,” he says. “They think, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ I don’t even know how to sign up for classes. How am I going to graduate?”
Messages and how discipline is handled in the classroom can also play a role, he added.
Walton has spent decades researching ways to foster a stronger sense of belonging in educational settings. and a range of approaches that his research has shown can strengthen student-teacher relationships and a sense of belonging, which can have a significant impact on student academic performance. and strategy development.
Edsage then spoke with Mr. Walton. the lecture he gave this month At the SXSW EDU Festival in Austin.
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EdSurge: You argue that small cues in education can make a big difference in whether students feel like they belong. What are some examples?
Greg Walton: Sapna Cheriyan, a professor at the University of Washington, conducts research on issues of gender and belonging. And one of the things she discovered was in a study that was done at Stanford University, she took over a small room in her science department with computers, and under certain conditions she put something like a Star Trek poster in that room. This means that artifacts from otaku-like male culture were placed there. And a can of Diet Coke. And when women and men entered such environments, women reported far less interest in computer science compared to men.
But when she changed that, replacing the poster with a nature poster and putting it in a water bottle, women actually became more interested in computer science than men.
And what was happening was women were looking at this space and saying, “This is kind of a nerdy, masculine space.” Who am I here? What overlap is there between who I am as a woman and what this space allows? ‘ It didn’t seem very good and they weren’t interested.
Similarly, stories abound about attributional uncertainty for students of color and first-generation college students.Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks at her confirmation hearing about her experience [feeling out of place] at Harvard University. And so much of our history in education has been written by exclusion based on racial and social class, and people have been excluded from school settings and selective school settings based on race and class. Ta. And its history lies in people’s awareness and the struggles that communities have fought to ensure access to education. And that leads to a psychological process where you wonder, “Is this an environment where I really belong? And what kind of people will accept me well, treat me fairly, and include me?” I will hold you.
What are the biggest obstacles to implementing ideas based on research findings?
During my early years at Stanford, I began building partnerships with the university and building positive relationships with social belonging and growth mindsets and values, in part as a researcher, in hopes of beginning to implement these interventions on campus. I presented my research on the intervention to a university committee. , but also in part as a Stanford graduate. And I attended this conference with front-line staff who were very dedicated and very passionate about this conference. They are the ones who watch students struggle with the anxiety of belonging every day. And the most senior management there basically looked at it and said, “I can’t believe it.”
What she saw was like magic, and she didn’t believe in magic.
If I were a physicist and I used a bunch of complicated physics terms that she didn’t know, she would just nod in agreement. But I was talking about psychology, about how people think and feel, and it’s too vague and unsystematic, and her lay theory doesn’t live up to the evidence I’ve provided. It was too built.
As a result, the project was delayed by a full year.
So, in part, it’s seriously considering how people understand themselves, and I think school context is fundamentally important. It’s just as important as anything else.
It is very difficult to systematically drive change across systems. There are a lot of gatekeepers like one admin who can keep the project going.
What can university professors do to foster a sense of belonging?
Another type of norm is about how we treat people who are different from us, how we respect diversity. In a series of studies, Professor Sohail Murad of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Professor Marcus Brauer of the University of Wisconsin have shown that posters and posters are used simply to communicate diversity norms within university classrooms. . short video This explains that students support diversity in general and respect people from diverse backgrounds, which created a more inclusive and better learning environment for students.
So all students, especially those from racial minority groups, low socio-economic groups, and religious minority groups, will find their environment more inclusive and accepting, which actually results in higher achievement. , reported to have reduced inequality and achievement among those people. class.
So there are a lot of ways to be very intentional about what kind of norms we want to create in this space, given the goals that we have, and what my role is in promoting those norms. there is.
How does this play out in K-12 settings?
People go into education and the teaching profession primarily because of the kind of relationships they want to have with children, and how those relationships can be a place for children to grow, especially children from disadvantaged and diverse backgrounds. It depends on what you get. But when you look at the data, in many ways, our schools are not having that experience.
A recent study using data from high school students found that children who reported having a natural mentor during high school were 12 to 26 more likely to attend college than those who did not, controlling for everything else. It turned out to be a percentage point higher.
That’s a huge effect.
But only 15 percent of kids had a natural mentor in high school, and that number was even lower in high school. [students of low-socioeconomic status]Even if having a mentor was even more beneficial to them.
The reality for many children today is that school is a lonely, critical, and evaluative place. In California, a statewide survey found that less than 60 percent of ninth graders reported having caring relationships with adults. No progress has been made in this regard over the past decade. This is outrageous.
So I think educators look at this and know the importance of relationships, and we know that sometimes it doesn’t work, but there’s some kind of mystery as to why and what’s happening. There is.
One of the things that’s really interesting to me is that we’re starting to very clearly identify a limited number of critical turning points in the student-educator relationship. These are critical junctures where relationships can improve and trust can grow and be maintained, or lost. And we are increasingly learning how to correctly judge these forks.
Can you give me an example?
An example is when a teacher is responding to a student when there is a conflict and there is misbehavior. Teachers know that a big factor in achieving their goals in the classroom is whether the class is orderly and on-task. Children who misbehave threaten it. And in our culture, it’s very easy to default to a punitive approach to children who misbehave. In fact, we do that as parents. I don’t think there is a parent who has never said to their child, “Go to your room.” that’s it. You may know that it’s not really the most helpful or effective thing, but I’ve been doing it. It won’t have an amazing effect on your relationship with your child. It’s not a long term solution.
That’s why schools have policies like zero tolerance policies. We have policies that incorporate this type of punitive approach. Well, our research, led by former Stanford University graduate student Jason Okonofua, has created a system that provides teachers with so-called “empathetic thinking” about cheating. It doesn’t mean that you don’t discipline them. This means that when you discipline, you discipline in a way that draws your child closer to you, rather than pushing them away.
So you might give the child some attention and then go talk to them about it and hear what their experience was. And your goal is to maintain strong relationships while adhering to the norms that need to exist within the classroom.
This was a randomized controlled trial with middle school math teachers that reduced suspension rates across schools throughout the year and even into the following year. It’s an important turning point. Is your teacher responding to you? Are they pushing you away or are they maintaining a relationship with you and listening to you?
That’s important.
