Well-Being for Rural Education Through a Sense of Belonging

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 9:50 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Preparing Teachers for Rural Contexts: Well-Being, Justice, and Place-Based Education (Table 8)

Abstract

This paper examines how a Rural and Remote Education Teacher Education Program supports early career educators’ wellbeing in hybrid learning environments using relational, inclusive, interactive, multi-modal, and accessible learning design and resources. The results demonstrate how rural teacher education programs support, nurture and sustain the multiple dimensions of wellbeing by engaging in culturally sustaining pedagogies. Reponses indicated that a sense of belonging was associated with self-reported conceptions of wellbeing. Results provided insights into how to co-create a sense of belonging for teacher candidates in relation to the diversity of social identities (backgrounds, orientations and intersectionalities). These findings provide direction for hybrid rural teacher education programs to engage in culturally sustaining pedagogies by co-creating a sense of belonging to support student wellbeing.

Authors

• Leyton Schnellert, University of British Columbia

• Karen Ragoonaden, University of British Columbia

• Terry Taylor, University of British Columbia