A Qualitative Study on the Costs of Belonging in High School

• In Event: Belonging at What Cost? Identifying and Regulating Costs of Existing and Persisting in Educational Spaces

Abstract

Objectives/Theoretical Framework
Belonging is a core human need (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) and particularly vital during adolescence, when it supports a range of positive outcomes (Campione‐Barr et al., 2021; Goodenow & Grady, 1993). Yet for students with marginalized identities, belonging often comes at a cost. These students may face internal conflict between the desire to belong and the recognition that their identities are not fully accepted in academic spaces. This study uses a qualitative approach to explore students’ own accounts of the costs of belonging, deepening understanding of how identity shapes school experiences. Guided by theoretical work on belonging uncertainty and identity management, we examine how marginalized students may experience more fragile belonging (Walton & Cohen, 2007), engage in constant monitoring of social cues (Cook et al., 2012), suppress aspects of their identity to fit dominant norms (Carter, 2006; Stephens et al., 2012), and expend disproportionate effort to be accepted in unwelcoming environments (Covarrubias & Fryberg, 2015). These hidden costs can tax psychological resources and undermine well-being.

Method
We recruited 1,063 high school students for this study (52% girls, 48% boys; 61% White, 16% Latino, 12% Black, 5% Asian, 6% other groups). Students completed a survey where they responded to an open-ended prompt asking them about what they felt they had to give up to belong at school. Open inductive thematic coding of students’ responses was conducted independently by two coders for reliability (range of Cohen’s Kappa for two raters: .60 - .98) and produced ten thematic categories representing the costs of belonging. Codes reflected student-derived themes, not preconceived researcher assumptions or theories.

Results
The coding categories derived from student responses generally represented their perceptions of the costs of belonging as involving hiding parts of their identities, being inauthentic, and/or having to present oneself in a certain way to fit in (for summary of results, see Table 1a and Figure 1a). The most common type of response from students fell into the General Inauthenticity category (41% of students mentioning this theme), which was defined as generally discussing changing yourself to have to fit in without necessarily specific changes mention, including responses like: “Having to be like everyone else” and “givi[ing] up being their true self to fit in with other[s]”. Other responses highlighted specific aspects of conforming, including categories like Changing My Personality and Changing My Interests or Attitudes. Some aspects of conforming were more external, including categories like Changing How I Dress and Changing How I Talk. Other aspects were more internal, including categories like Hiding My Values, Politics, or Religion Hiding My Emotions.

Significance
This study advances our theoretical understanding of belonging by shifting attention away from the presence of belonging to the psychological and identity-related costs that students may incur to belong. Rather than researchers deciding what these costs are and measuring it, our examination of these costs comes through student’s own accounts and complicates the conditional and performative dimensions of belongings, which are especially complex for students with marginalized identities in educational contexts.

Author

• Maegan Barbara Arney, Washington University in St. Louis