In Belonging and Identity in STEM Higher Education, leading scholars, teachers, practitioners and students explore belonging and identity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, and how this is impacted by disciplinary changes and the post-pandemic higher education context. In STEM fields, positivist approaches and a focus on numerical data can lead to assumptions that they are unemotional, impersonal disciplines. The need for mathematical competency, logical thinking and disciplinary contexts can be barriers to engagement, belonging, and success in STEM.
STEM ways of thinking, such as those underpinning abstract and complex mathematics, can form the basis for new ways of conceptualising belonging for both staff and students, going beyond socio-demographic and cultural differences. In this book, chapters and case study contributions analyse what is unique about STEM educational environments for staff and students in the UK, Ireland, Europe, Scandinavia, and Asia. The authors examine the role of STEM pedagogies in facilitating belonging, variable impacts across student characteristics and the experiences STEM students face in their higher education experiences. It provides a valuable resource for those working in equity diversity and inclusion (EDI), STEM educational researchers and practitioners, as well as offering insights for academics and teachers in STEM higher education.
Table of Content
List of figures
List of 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 to 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 Mc Crone
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
About the author
Camille Kandiko Howson is Associate Professor of Education at the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship, Imperial College London, UK.Martyn Kingsbury is Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship, Imperial College London, UK.
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