their rights as a citizen and a member of a variety of social groups. The positive identity which is developed through early relationships is the result of children feeling that they are liked, recognised and accepted for who they are and what they are – both for their unique identity and for their status as a member of a group or category, so that being a girl, being a member of an ethnic group, being disabled, being different, should not result in any child ‘failing to belong’ (Brooker and Woodhead 2008). Understanding belonging
There are many ways to describe this early sense of belonging, many different theories, each with their own concepts and vocabulary, which may not immediately be recognised as about ‘belonging’. Recognising the interconnections amongst concepts and ideas can help to ensure that the experiences provided in early childhood programmes enable all children, and all families, to experience a similar sense of belonging as they encounter diverse services – family centres and daycare, schools and pre-schools, and community programmes. Feeling secure
Most children ‘belong’ in their families from long before their birth. In most circumstances, parents look forward to the new arrival. They may already talk about him or her as a family member, discuss which name to choose and speculate about their future. Except in the most adverse and difficult situations, the birth of a new baby is a cause for celebration, and most babies, in consequence, enter an environment of emotional warmth and welcome which ensures their ‘belonging’. In some communities, recognition of belonging is publicly symbolised through religious or cultural festivals. Young children’s acquisition of a positive identity, or identities, begins in these early experiences of affection and affirmation, typically rooted in a small number of close relationships, with mother, father, siblings or wider family members according to circumstance. The significance of these attachment relationships for children’s emotional well-being first gained public attention through John Bowlby’s (1969) work on the consequences of early deprivations. Positive attachments during infancy are now recognised as the secure base within which children can learn and explore (Oates 2007). Belonging, in this sense, lays the foundations for a
4 | A Sense of Belonging
strong and resilient sense of self – a self which can be sustained through subsequent transitions into the wider world and through subsequent experiences which may be less affirming and inclusive. As General Comment 7 affirms: “Under normal circumstances, young children form strong mutual attachments with their parents or primary caregivers… Through these relationships children construct a personal identity and acquire culturally valued skills, knowledge and behaviours” (un 1989, General Comment 7, paragraph 16)
Feeling suitable
One powerful description of belonging has been provided by the Danish early childhood researcher Stig Broström in his exploration of young children’s transitions into the education system (Broström 2002). Broström argues that children who make these transitions successfully will ‘feel suitable’ in their new setting. ‘Feeling suitable’ means of course that a child appears to be the right person to be in this place. Such a child needs to look suitable (and not too different from other children), dress suitably (which may mean not dressing as one’s family dresses), speak suitably (not in a language which no-one understands), behave suitably (in a situation where new adults and children may have different views about appropriate behaviour), eat suitably (in a context where the tools for eating are different from those of home), play suitably (in a context where cultural expectations about play may be strong), and so on. Almost all children are likely to have ‘felt suitable’ in the environment where they grew up, where they learned to speak, eat, dress, behave, play and so on, but many children may begin to feel unsuitable as they move out of their home and family environment and into some kind of group care setting. Feeling like fish in water
The phrase, ‘like fish in water’, was first used to describe a sense of belonging by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992) but has also frequently been borrowed by early educators. Bourdieu was concerned to describe the way that individuals and