Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

“Peering through the window looking in”: postgraduate experiences of non-belonging and belonging in relation to mental health and wellbeing

“Peering through the window looking in”: postgraduate experiences of non-belonging and belonging... The purpose of this paper is to explore belonging in relation to postgraduate wellbeing in the light of renewed concerns about the mental health and wellbeing this group of learners. It attends to postgraduates’ subjective wellbeing, identifying ways in which this is intertwined with a sense of belonging. Belonging is situated in relation to the social domains of postgraduate experiences. This paper seeks to contribute in-depth understandings of postgraduate experiences, to make recommendations for practice and to identify fruitful paths for further theorisation and research.Design/methodology/approachTwo qualitative data sets situated in UK higher education are drawn on here: firstly, longitudinal qualitative data entailing 33 narrative interviews and written reflections of doctoral researchers were collected as part of a phenomenological study of doctoral learning. Secondly, interview data from 20 postgraduates (including masters, professional doctorates and PhD researchers) were collected as part of mixed method qualitative case study research into postgraduate wellbeing. Postgraduate participants were based in the social sciences, humanities, arts and professional disciplines at a cross-section of UK higher education institutions. Data were analysed thematically with a focus on interconnections between wellbeing, learning and belonging.FindingsA sense of belonging arose as a key contributing factor to postgraduate wellbeing. Belonging emerged as multi-faceted, interlinking with spatial, relational and cultural factors which are likely to be experienced in different ways and degrees depending on positionalities. Experiences of belonging and non-belonging are understood as produced through academic cultures and structural inequities. They also pertain to the uncertain, in-between position of postgraduate learners. For postgraduates, and doctoral researchers especially, reaching a sense of belonging to academia was a profoundly important aspect of their journeys. Conversely, lack of belonging is linked with poor mental wellbeing and engagement with studies.Originality/valueThis paper engages with the neglected social domain of wellbeing. Attending to subjective perceptions of wellbeing enabled nuanced understandings of the links between wellbeing and belonging. It identifies spatial, relational and cultural dimensions of postgraduate belonging, contributing an understanding of how feelings of non-belonging manifest, how belonging might be nurtured, and how this potentially contributes to postgraduates’ wellbeing. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education Emerald Publishing

“Peering through the window looking in”: postgraduate experiences of non-belonging and belonging in relation to mental health and wellbeing

Download PDF
14 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/peering-through-the-window-looking-in-postgraduate-experiences-of-non-lBI5eY0CBA
Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
2398-4686
DOI
10.1108/sgpe-07-2020-0055
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore belonging in relation to postgraduate wellbeing in the light of renewed concerns about the mental health and wellbeing this group of learners. It attends to postgraduates’ subjective wellbeing, identifying ways in which this is intertwined with a sense of belonging. Belonging is situated in relation to the social domains of postgraduate experiences. This paper seeks to contribute in-depth understandings of postgraduate experiences, to make recommendations for practice and to identify fruitful paths for further theorisation and research.Design/methodology/approachTwo qualitative data sets situated in UK higher education are drawn on here: firstly, longitudinal qualitative data entailing 33 narrative interviews and written reflections of doctoral researchers were collected as part of a phenomenological study of doctoral learning. Secondly, interview data from 20 postgraduates (including masters, professional doctorates and PhD researchers) were collected as part of mixed method qualitative case study research into postgraduate wellbeing. Postgraduate participants were based in the social sciences, humanities, arts and professional disciplines at a cross-section of UK higher education institutions. Data were analysed thematically with a focus on interconnections between wellbeing, learning and belonging.FindingsA sense of belonging arose as a key contributing factor to postgraduate wellbeing. Belonging emerged as multi-faceted, interlinking with spatial, relational and cultural factors which are likely to be experienced in different ways and degrees depending on positionalities. Experiences of belonging and non-belonging are understood as produced through academic cultures and structural inequities. They also pertain to the uncertain, in-between position of postgraduate learners. For postgraduates, and doctoral researchers especially, reaching a sense of belonging to academia was a profoundly important aspect of their journeys. Conversely, lack of belonging is linked with poor mental wellbeing and engagement with studies.Originality/valueThis paper engages with the neglected social domain of wellbeing. Attending to subjective perceptions of wellbeing enabled nuanced understandings of the links between wellbeing and belonging. It identifies spatial, relational and cultural dimensions of postgraduate belonging, contributing an understanding of how feelings of non-belonging manifest, how belonging might be nurtured, and how this potentially contributes to postgraduates’ wellbeing.

Journal

Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education – Emerald Publishing

Published: Aug 2, 2021

Keywords: Well-being; Postgraduate; Belonging

References

  • Dealing with isolation feelings in is doctoral programs
    Ali, A.; Kohun, F.
  • Using thematic analysis in psychology
    Braun, V.; Clarke, V.
  • Imposter syndrome as a public feeling
    Breeze, M.; Taylor, Y.; Lahad, K.
  • Curating care-full spaces: doctoral students negotiating study from home
    Burford, J.; Hook, G.
  • Different for women? The challenges of doctoral studies
    Carter, S.; Blumenstein, M.; Cook, C.
  • The challenge of defining wellbeing
    Dodge, R.; Daly, A.; Huyton, J.; Sanders, L.
  • Placing researcher identifications: labs, offices and homes in the PhD
    Dowling, T.; Mantai, L.
  • Breaking the silence: the hidden injuries of neo-liberal academia
    Gill, R.; Flood, R.; Gill, R.
  • In the footsteps of wilcock, part two: the interdependent nature of doing, being, becoming, and belonging
    Hitch, D.; Pépin, G.; Stagnitti, K.
  • Bodies in narratives of doctoral students' learning and experience
    Hopwood, N.; Paulson, J.
  • Oscillating role identities: the academic experiences of education doctoral students
    Jazvac-Martek, M.
  • The PhD and the autonomous self: gender, rationality and postgraduate pedagogy
    Johnson, L.; Lee, A.; Green, B.
  • Embodying deficiency through ‘affective practice’: shame, relationality, and the lived experience of social class and gender in higher education
    Loveday, V.
  • Carelessness: a hidden doxa of higher education
    Lynch, K.
  • Identity and agency: pleasures and collegiality among the challenges of the doctoral journey
    McAlpine, L.; Amundsen, C.
  • A source of sanity’: the role of social support for doctoral candidates’ belonging and becoming
    Mantai, L.
  • Invisible experiences: understanding the choices and needs of university students with dependent children
    Marandet, E.; Wainwright, E.
  • Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: linkages to ways of thinking and practicing within disciplines
    Meyer, J.H.F.; Land, R.
  • Black women in higher education: defining a space/finding a place
    Mirza, H.S.; Morley, L.; Walsh, V.
  • Wellbeing and the research student
    Morris, C.; Marshall, L.; Morris, C.
  • Restorying imposter syndrome in the early career stage: reflections, recognitions and resistance
    Morris, C.; Kadiwal, L.; Telling, K.; Ashall, W.; Kirby, J.; Mwale, S.; Addison, M.; Breeze, M.; Taylor, Y.
  • Doctoral students’ social support profiles and their relationship to burnout, drop-out intentions, and time to candidacy
    Peltonen, J.A.; Vekkaila, J.; Rautio, P.; Haverinen, K.; Pyhältö, K.
  • Phenomenological research methods
    Polkinghorne, D.E.; Valle, R. S.; Halling, S.
  • Doctoral students’ readings of the politics of university office space
    Promsaka Na Sakonnakron, S.; Burford, J.
  • Challenging cultures? Student conceptions of ‘belonging’ and ‘isolation’ at a post-1992 university
    Read, B.; Archer, L.; Leathwood, C.
  • Always knowing’ and ‘never being sure’: familial and institutional habituses and higher education choice
    Reay, D.
  • On happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing
    Ryan, R.; Deci, E.
  • Juggling competing activities: academic staff as doctoral candidates
    Smith, J.; Billot, J.; Clouder, L.; King, V.
  • Colleges as communities: Taking research on student persistence seriously
    Tinto, V.
  • Communities of practice and social learning systems
    Wenger, E.
  • Belonging and mattering: how doctoral students experience community
    White, J.; Nonnamaker, J.
  • Doctoral supervision in a cross-cultural context: issues affecting supervisors and candidates
    Winchester-Seeto, T.; Homewood, J.; Thogersen, J.; Jacenyik-Trawoger, C.; Manathunga, C.; Reid, A.; Holbrook, A.
  • Doctoral ‘orphans’: nurturing and supporting the success of postgraduates who have lost their supervisors
    Wisker, G.; Robinson, G.
  • Postgraduate research success: communities of practice involving cohorts, guardian supervisors and online communities
    Wisker, G.; Robinson, G.; Shacham, M.