Academic ‘place-making’: fostering attachment, belonging and identity for Indigenous students in Australian universities

ABSTRACT

Place is a concept used to explore how people ascribe meaning to their physical and social surrounds, and their emotional affects. Exploring the university as a place can highlight social relations affecting Australian Indigenous students’ sense of belonging and identity. We asked what university factors contribute to the development of a positive sense of place for these students. Findings are presented from two Australian universities, based on focus groups with Indigenous students, and interviews with Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff. Students prioritized relationships with academics as a key theme, stressing academic’s flexibility and understanding enabled their persistence at university. Students situationally manage self-identification, requiring academics to engage effectively with diverse students, but staff felt they required further professional development. We argue that academics can ‘make’ university places in their pedagogies and mentoring roles, but require universities to recognize this pedagogical caring as a legitimate and valued element of their work.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous higher education students
• academics
• place attachment
• belonging
• identity

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all students and staff who participated in this research; and the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the draft manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Office for Learning and Teaching [Grant number SD15-5165].