A Sense of Belonging Martin Woodhead, Professor of Childhood Studies, the Open University and Liz Brooker, Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood, University of London Institute of Education
The importance for babies and young children to feel a sense of belonging in their early social environments is something that is easily taken for granted because it seems self-evident, natural and inevitable. Not surprisingly, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (uncrc) (un 1989) does not include ‘belonging’ explicitly as a child’s right, but the concept of belonging is in many ways at the heart of a rights-based approach to early childhood. From birth, every child has a right to a name, to a nationality, and a right to know and (as far as possible) be cared for by his or her parents (Article 7). The child has a right to be provided with an adequate standard of living and care (Article 27), to education (Article 28) and to play and cultural opportunities (Article 31). The child also has a right to respect for their views and feelings (Article 12), to non-discrimination (Article 2), to be able to practice religion, culture and language (Article 30), and to protection from coercive or exploitative relationships (Article 32, 34). These rights are particularly important for vulnerable groups of children, or for children growing up in difficult situations. Amongst the various provisions of the uncrc, it is the right to identity (Article 8) that appears most closely linked to a sense of belonging. Belonging is the relational dimension of personal identity, the fundamental psycho-social ‘glue’ that locates every individual (babies, children and adults) at a particular position in space, time and human society and – most important, connects people to each other. A sense of belonging is about relating to people and places, to beliefs and ideas, to ways of dressing, talking, playing, learning, laughing and crying. Belonging is a two-way process. It is about a child’s needs and rights being recognised and met, about being protected and provided for, about feeling cared for, respected and included. It is also about having opportunities to express personal agency and creativity, about feeling able to contribute, to love and to care for others, to take on responsibilities and fulfil roles, to identify with personal and community activities, and to share in
collective celebration. It is also about feeling part of, as well as separate from, the social environment. Of course, these are dynamic and multi-faceted processes. Children’s experiences of belonging shift from day to day and from year to year, as they encounter new people and places, and learn new skills and cultural practices. Experiences of belonging are rarely singular, especially in modern, complex societies. Children may feel in various degrees to belong with their parents at home, with their peers in the playground, at pre-school and in other community settings, and they may have access to numerous ways of belonging, informed by diverse cultural beliefs and practices. In other words, the phrase “polygamy of belongings” is closer to their reality (Vandenbroeck 2008). Belonging is most often experienced as a positive feeling. But there is a darker side, in situations where a child’s emotional investment in belonging with a parent (or other caregiver) is not reciprocated. When relationships become possessive, or distorted, feelings of belonging can become manipulative, disturbed or abusive. The balance between belonging and separateness can also be distorted by inequalities of power and access to resources within families and communities, notoriously so in extreme cases of child slavery, where bonded labourers literally ‘belong’ to their masters. Finally, fundamental needs to belong within a particular social or cultural group all too easily lead to rejection of others, who are perceived as not belonging. The dynamics of inclusion and exclusion are learned early in life, from both sides of the fence, as children’s identification with their family, with their gender and their religion, go hand in hand with feelings of difference, and are all too often expressed in terms of superiority and overt hostility. At worst these processes are built into political and economic structures, and institutionalised in systematic discrimination. In short, belonging is fundamental to any child’s well-being and happiness, and to the realisation of
Bernard van Leer Foundation | Early Childhood Matters | November 2008
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