Conceptualizing belonging

Abstract

Purpose: To develop a transdisciplinary conceptualization of social belonging that could be used to guide measurement approaches aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of community-based programs for people with disabilities.

Method: We conducted a narrative, scoping review of peer reviewed English language literature published between 1990 and July 2011 using multiple databases, with “sense of belonging” as a key search term. The search engine ranked articles for relevance to the search strategy. Articles were searched in order until theoretical saturation was reached. We augmented this search strategy by reviewing reference lists of relevant papers.

Results: Theoretical saturation was reached after 40 articles; 22 of which were qualitative accounts. We identified five intersecting themes: subjectivity; groundedness to an external referent; reciprocity; dynamism and self-determination.

Conclusion: We define a sense of belonging as a subjective feeling of value and respect derived from a reciprocal relationship to an external referent that is built on a foundation of shared experiences, beliefs or personal characteristics. These feelings of external connectedness are grounded to the context or referent group, to whom one chooses, wants and feels permission to belong. This dynamic phenomenon may be either hindered or promoted by complex interactions between environmental and personal factors.

Implications for Rehabilitation

Sense of belonging

• Program evaluation and monitoring exist in order to measure success and outcomes of rehabilitation practice.

• Sense of belonging is one of the goals of rehabilitation services, but has not yet been defined unambiguously, making it difficult for practitioners to understand if they are achieving these goals.

• Researchers and practitioners in rehabilitation can define a sense of belonging as a subjective feeling of value and respect derived from a reciprocal relationship to an external referent that is built on a foundation of shared experiences, beliefs or personal characteristics when conceptualizing and designing tools to measure sense of belonging as an outcomes of their services.

Keywords::

• Intellectual disabilities
• mental health
• sense of belonging
• social belonging
• social inclusion

Acknowledgements

This review is part of a broader initiative funded by the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services. For more information on our research program, please visit www.mapsresearch.ca.

Declaration of Interest: This study was undertaken as part of the Multidimensional Assessment of Services and Providers (MAPS). MAPS is a research program to inform the assessment of services and supports for adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities in Ontario, Canada. MAPS (www.mapsresearch.ca) is supported by a research grant from the Government of Ontario’s Ministry of Community and Social Services. The author benefited from feedback and comments from MAPS co-researchers: H. Ouellette-Kuntz, R. Hickey, Y. Lunsky, R. Lysaght, L. Martin.

The views expressed in this study report are not necessarily the views of all MAPS partners, researchers, collaborators or those of the Ministry.