Behind the Screens – The Unseen Marketing

by Hanna Seglem Tangen

What do we know about what youth see on their mobile phone? Our mobile phones and social media are highly private and mostly for good reasons. It is our own alternative and digital world. Youth spend hours and hours daily on their mobile phones exploring this world. Unfortunately, there are some cons of this privacy. Our data is not private to commercial actors, and our time and following of different profiles on social media is a part of a huge digital economy. As we do not see what other people see on social media, it is not that easy to regulate unhealthy content, such as the marketing of unhealthy foods and drinks. Furthermore, children often use consumer goods to belong in a group (Pugh, 2011). This phenomenon was demonstrated last summer when popular YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI promoted the sports drink PRIME Hydration in Norway. Thousands of children turned up to the event and the sports drink was flying of the shelves for a long period of time (Eriksen et al., 2023). The sports drink was primarily promoted in social media.

Icons of a phone and people analyzing the content on the phone
credit: pexels | WebTechExperts

Food Environments

Lately, the term Food Environments has been coming up as a relevant subject. From the Public Health Institute of Norway comes the following definition: “Food environments are the physical, economic, political, and sociocultural contexts in which people interact with the food system when making choices about acquiring, preparing, and consuming food. This includes both physical and digital/virtual environments.” (Uldahl & Torheim, 2023). This also means that the foods and drinks we see on social media are a part of our Food Environment. Studies do indicate that advertising for unhealthy food and drink can influence children and adolescents’ choices, as well as change their attitudes and preferences towards different foods and drinks (Buchanan et al., 2018; Cairns et al., 2013; Coates et al., 2019; Harris et al., 2021; Kucharczuk et al., 2022; Lykke & Selberg, 2022; Mc Carthy et al., 2022; Sadeghirad et al., 2016; Smith et al., 2019).

Somebody taking a picture of plates of foods with a phone
credit: pexels | Roman Odintsov

Marketing for unhealthy foods and drinks in Norway

The Norwegian government is now planning to implement a new legislation to regulate marketing towards children and youth under the age of 18 (Innst. 398 S (2022-2023), 2023). However, our understanding of the amount of marketing of unhealthy foods and drinks on social media remains limited because the research methods are still insufficient. Social media platforms are rapidly changing alongside the forms of marketing. This makes it hard to follow the evolution of marketing on social media based on the existing methods. Formerly, my colleague Alexander Schjøll and I explored how much marketing a selection of influencers posted on social media over a period of three months (Tangen & Schjøll, 2023). Our findings revealed that nearly a quarter (24%) of all posts were marketing. The most frequently marketed categories were food and drinks, primarily sports and energy drinks, followed by clothing and accessories. Still, these results can just indicate the current situation, not generalize anything. Other Norwegian studies have shown different types of marketing to be more common (Retriever, 2022; Steinnes & Haugrønning, 2020).

Influencer promoting a drink
credit: pexels | ivan samk

In our study, even though we looked at popular influencers, we do not know what children and adolescents see on their own phones. We could not look into the ads, both traditional and personalized, that are displayed to each person based on their algorithms. Similar studies to ours have been done, but to this author’s knowledge, no other studies have been able to measure marketing in children’s and adolescent’s mobiles in a satisfying and precise way.

Influencer eating a slice of pizza
credit: pexels | ivan samk

Making the unseen marketing visible

Therefore, we are currently working on a project to monitor marketing on social media in cooperation with WHO and The Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Adolescents aged 13-18 are going to download an application developed by WHO. This application will monitor and capture screenshots from Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube when our respondents use it. In this way we can capture and count the real exposure of marketing adolescents witness on social media. SIFO researchers Steinnes & Haugrønning (2020) conducted a study with a former version of the application, where the initial version processed the content of photos and returned text-based data. Their study provided promising results for further development and use of this method. Now, the application is further developed to take screenshots, sort out sensitive images by using AI and includes an analyzing tool who tags brands and commercials. Our continuation of Steinnes & Haugrønning’s (2020) method and a newer version of the application will provide us with new insights into unseen marketing on social media and youths digital food environments.

children sitting looking at a phone
credit: pexels | katerina holmes

Bio

Hanna Seglem Tangen is a research assistant at Consumption Research Norway (SIFO), belonging in the research group Sustainable Textile and Food Consumption. Hanna’s research interests include sustainable food consumption, public health, advertising and marketing, politics, policy, and evaluation. She applies with both qualitative and quantitative methods in her work.

References

Buchanan, L., Yeatman, H., Kelly, B., & Kariippanon, K. (2018). A thematic content analysis of how marketers promote energy drinks on digital platforms to young Australians. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 42(6), 530–531. https://doi.org/10.1111/1753-6405.12840

Cairns, G., Angus, K., Hastings, G., & Caraher, M. (2013). Systematic reviews of the evidence on the nature, extent and effects of food marketing to children. A retrospective summary. Appetite, 62, 209–215. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2012.04.017

Coates, A. E., Hardman, C. A., Halford, J. C. G., Christiansen, P., & Boyland, E. J. (2019). Social Media Influencer Marketing and Children’s Food Intake: A Randomized Trial. Pediatrics, 143(4), e20182554. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2018-2554

Eriksen, D., Sørnes, A. J., Haugen, K., & Klokkerud Odden, F. (2023, June 27). Tusenvis av fans møtte Youtube-stjerner i Oslo. NRK. https://www.nrk.no/kultur/tusenvis-av-fans-motte-youtube-stjerner-i-oslo-1.16462419

Harris, J. L., Yokum, S., & Fleming-Milici, F. (2021). Hooked on Junk: Emerging Evidence on How Food Marketing Affects Adolescents’ Diets and Long-Term Health. Current Addiction Reports, 8(1), 19–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40429-020-00346-4

Innst. 398 S (2022-2023). (2023). Innstilling fra helse- og omsorgskomiteen om Folkehelsemeldinga – Nasjonal strategi for utjamning av sosiale helseforskjellar. Helse- og omsorgskomiteen. https://www.stortinget.no/no/Saker-og-publikasjoner/Publikasjoner/Innstillinger/Stortinget/2022-2023/inns-202223-398s/?m=3&c=False

Kucharczuk, A. J., Oliver, T. L., & Dowdell, E. B. (2022). Social media’s influence on adolescents′ food choices: A mixed studies systematic literature review. Appetite, 168, 105765. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105765

Lykke, M. B., & Selberg, N. (2022). Usund digital markedsføring. Effekten af digital markedsføring af fødevarer med et højt indhold af fedt, salt og sukker på børn og unges fødevarevalg – en kortlægning af den videnskabelige evidens. Hjerteforeningen.

Mc Carthy, C. M., de Vries, R., & Mackenback, J. D. (2022). The influence of unhealthy food and beverage marketing through social media and advergaming on diet‐related outcomes in children—A systematic review. Obesity Reviews, 23(6), https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13441.

Pugh, A. J. (2011). Distinction, boundaries or bridges?: Children, inequality and the uses of consumer culture. Poetics, 39(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2010.10.002

Retriever. (2022). Hva kommuniserer norske og utenlandske influensere til norske ungdommer på sosiale medier? Medietilsynet. https://www.medietilsynet.no/globalassets/publikasjoner/barn-og-medier-undersokelser/2022/influenseranalyse.pdf

Sadeghirad, B., Duhaney, T., Motaghipisheh, S., Campbell, N. R. C., & Johnston, B. C. (2016). Influence of unhealthy food and beverage marketing on children’s dietary intake and preference: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials. Obesity Reviews, 17(10), 945–959. https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.12445

Smith, R., Kelly, B., Yeatman, H., & Boyland, E. (2019). Food Marketing Influences Children’s Attitudes, Preferences and Consumption: A Systematic Critical Review. Nutrients, 11(4), Article 4. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11040875

Steinnes, K. K., & Haugrønning, V. (2020). Mapping the landscape of digital food marketing: Investigating exposure of digital food and drink advertisements to Norwegian children and adolescents. Consumption Research Norway (SIFO), OsloMet. https://oda.oslomet.no/oda-xmlui/handle/20.500.12199/6510

Tangen, H. S., & Schjøll, A. (2023). Eksponering for markedsføring av usunn mat og drikke. Reklame rettet mot barn og unge i sosiale medier. In 55 (Report SIFO-rapport;14-2023). Forbruksforskningsinstituttet SIFO, OsloMet. https://oda.oslomet.no/oda-xmlui/handle/11250/3107927

Uldahl, M., & Torheim, L.-E. (2023). Metoder og indikatorer for kartlegging og overvåkning av matomgivelser i Norge. Folkehelseinstituttet. https://www.fhi.no/publ/2023/matomgivelser/

How do smartphones shape belonging in a digitalized childhood?

by Øyvind Næss

In Norway, when something is said to have an ‘affective value’ (affeksjonsverdi), it is meant to convey how a thing can have a value that is disconnected from its economic or practical value within a system of exchange. Therefore, ‘affective value’ is a subjective value that always exists in a relation to a specific individual. The term is typically used for objects with an emotional significance or meaning attached to them. For example, you might have an old broken watch that you cannot get yourself to throw away. That probably means it has ‘affective value’. Throwing it away will come with an emotional cost.

picture of a smartphone with a child taking a selfie with a filter on Snapchat
credit: pexels | cottonbro

Not sure how to translate affeksjonsverdi into English, I asked my university’s AI chatbot for a translation and it proposed translating it into sentimental value. But connecting the term to sentimentality creates a binary between a subjective sentimental value and an objective practical, logical, and economic value. Such a binary division is rarely a good way to gain knowledge in a messy world. Instead, I will propose to understand the term as an emotional manifestation produced at the convergence of what Vanessa May on this blog calls the relational and material dimensions of belonging. Then the term instead conveys how value-laden objects draw events, materialities, and bodies together on an individual emotional register – and in doing so, help create a sense of who a person is by what it deems important. In short – where a person belongs. And that is not a question of sentimentality, that is a question of affect.

picture of a child laying on a couch with headphones looking at their phone.
credit: pexels | shkrabaanthony

In my fieldwork with younger children in digitalized childhoods, this convergence of events, materialities, and bodies is in many ways the central pivot that my interlocutors’ lives gravitate around. Even though I don’t engage directly with the concept of belonging in my research, I do engage with how smartphones create shared social experiences – joint spaces where children experience belonging and have their individual feelings of belonging recognized by their peers. For the children in my project, these feelings of belonging induced by digital entities are also connected to a heightened sense of agency through the opening up of novel digitalized ways to explore, be creative, and experiment within the heterogeneous assemblage that contemporary digitalized childhoods draw together.  

Picture of three children hanging out on a couch looking at a phone
credit: pexels | shkrabaanthony

An important part of my PhD project is to explore how children’s social experiences are tied to what I call gravitational forces that emerge as a result of digitalized childhood embeddedness in a global system of economic growth. In a language that perhaps aligns better with other posts on this blog, I explore how the potentialities of belonging are facilitated and constrained by the digital materialities deployed into contemporary digitalized childhoods.

picture of two people on a video call on a phone
credit: pexels | gabby k

One of the things I have found is that in childhood as in life in general, no one can escape gravity. All one can do is to act on it. And that is exactly what the children do. Smartphones laden with ‘affective value’ in digitalized childhoods do not exist in extrinsic relations with their owners. By turning to a Foucauldian view of power, these objects should rather seen as intrinsic parts of children’s identities by being situated as the mediators and catalysts of social connections. Thus, for the children I encountered in my fieldwork, the gravitational power enveloped in digitalized childhoods is not felt as a ‘power over…’ but as a ‘power to…’. However, this should not be taken to mean that no external power is present in digitalized childhoods (Massumi, 2015). It just means that power moves from extrinsic to intrinsic and from constraints to identity. By seeing smartphones and gaming consoles as objects of ‘affective value’, it is now possible to see how individual feelings of belonging in a contemporary childhood are ordered emotions, made to resonate with larger economic logics outside of childhood. Thus, for better and for worse, the potential for belonging in digitalized childhoods is always in-formed by the connections that it is possible to make between the materialities deployed in digitalized childhoods and the children that reside there on account of their social classification (Næss, forthcoming).

picture of two children sitting back to back each on a phone
credit: pexels | ron lach

Bio: Øyvind Næss is a PhD candidate at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. His research explores digitalized childhoods at the intersection of politics, individual experiences, and materialities through a theoretical framework informed by Deleuzeian affect theory.   

Massumi, B. (2015). Politics of affect. John Wiley & Sons.
Næss, Ø. (2025). A matter of logics, reasons, and practicalities: connecting spaces in a digitalized childhood. Forthcoming

Up and-coming belonging and youth research

Monika Marie Bergflødt

Read on and learn more about the exciting research of PhD candidate Monika Marie Bergflødt.

Place Attachment and Identity Exploration in Youth’s Everyday Lives

Picture of Oslo
credit pexels | naren-yogarajah

In recent years, there has been a surge in gendered narratives about boys and girls growing up in neighborhoods facing reputational challenges. The stories often revolve around minority communities and urban street cultures, attributing boys’ school struggles and involvement in crime and substance abuse to poverty, street culture and social stigma. Conversely, girls’ challenges are often seen in the context of patriarchal social control within minority communities (Rosten 2017; Smette et al, 2021; Sandberg & Pedersen, 2006). As scholars have shown, these narratives tend to oversimplify and obscure the intricate and constant evolving social realities of youth growing up today.

In my doctoral project, I seek to explore the ways in which boys and girls in stigmatized areas connect with people and places while navigating their identities in various social settings, both offline and online.

Picture of three teenage boys who are friends
credit | pexels cottonbro

A phenomenological and ethnographic approach

To grasp various layers of boys’ and girls’ everyday lives, I will combine interviews with participatory methods and fieldwork in a phenomenological and ethnographic study.

Phenomenological research aims to provide in-depth descriptions of experiences rather than definitive answers. Merleau-Ponty (1963) and Simone de Beauvoir (1949) both view the body as intricately connected to broader social, cultural and historical contexts. They emphasize that our experiences and interactions within these contexts also shape our understanding of ourselves.

Until now, perspectives on embodied experiences have largely been overlooked in the debates about youth in so-called “troubled neighborhoods”.  In my project, I seek to follow boys and girls in various aspects of their daily lives. By letting the participants lead the way and observing their interactions, I hope to capture the dynamic and embodied aspects of their social identities, gaining insights into how they understand themselves in different situations.

 “At-risk youth” and “troubled neighborhoods”

Picture of a housing block front
credit | pexels – pixabay

As researchers, it is important that we critically examine the concepts and categories we employ and consider whether they truly reflect the experiences of those we study (Staunæs, 2003). In recent years, numerous empirical studies have delved into the experiences of youth in stigmatized neighborhoods, drawing on Loïc Wacquant’s theory of territorial stigmatization (Rosten, 2017; Jensen & Christensen, 2012; Sernhede, 2011; Andersson, 2003). These studies reveal that narratives surrounding growing up in the «wrong place,» as well as the ways in which boys and girls relate to and negotiate these spaces, shape different experiences based on gender. Additionally, young people often encounter labels related to ethnicity, religion, and culture, even when they don’t see them as personally significant (Kindt & Strand, 2020).

Labelling children and young people as «vulnerable» or «at-risk» extends beyond mere descriptions of their circumstances. These labels may also serve as mechanisms of power, shaping perceptions of and responses to them in society (Gullestad, 2006). Essentially, labels don’t just mirror reality; they actively shape it, often unfairly.

In my project, I hope to grasp how boys and girls not only are influenced by the gendered narratives that surround them, but also how they interpret and redefine these narratives in various contexts.

A group of children reading a magazine
credit | pexels cottonbro

Digital platforms: new arenas for identity exploration

Being young today also involves growing up in an era where digital advancements have opened doors to new ways of self-expression and visibility, consequently making digital platforms significant arenas for identity exploration.

According to American sociologist Rogers Brubaker (2023), digital hyperconnection, as he refers to it, has changed how we relate to others and our sense of time and place. He suggests that living in a digital world, constantly connected to people and information, has not only changed how we see ourselves but also how others see us. However, Brubaker’s view is quite broad and impersonal. In my project, phenomenological and feminist perspectives may offer deeper and more nuanced insights into the complex dynamics unfolding in the lives of boys and girls living in situated yet “hyperconnected” digital lives.

credit | pexels wendywei

About Monika

Monika Marie Bergflødt is a PhD Candidate in Social Sciences at OsloMet, affiliated with the Department for Childhood, Family and Child Welfare (NOVA). Bergflødt’s research interests encompass social inequality, childhood, and the sense of belonging within multicultural and digital societies.

References

Andersson, M. (2003). Immigrant youth and the dynamics of marginalization. Young, 11(1), 74–89.

Beauvoir, S. d. ([1949] 2000). Det annet kjønn. (Christensen, Overs.). Pax Forlag.

Brubaker, R.. (2023). Hyperconnectivity and Its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Christensen, A.-D., & Siim, B. (2006). Fra køn til diversitet–intersektionalitet i en dansk/nordisk kontekst. Kvinder, køn & forskning(2-3).

Gullestad. (2006). Plausible prejudice: everyday experiences and social images of nation, culture and race. Universitetsforlaget.

Jensen, S. Q., & Christensen, A.-D. (2012). Territorial stigmatization and local belonging: A study of the Danish neighbourhood Aalborg East. City, 16(1-2), 74-92.

Kindt, M. T., & Strand, A. H. (2020). Hele mennesker–delte tjenester.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1965). Phenomenology of perception. Routledge.

Rosten, M. G. (2017). Territoriell stigmatisering og gutter som «leker getto» i Groruddalen. Norsk sosiologisk tidsskrift, 1(1), 53-70.

Sandberg, S., & Pedersen, W. (2006). Gatekapital. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Sernhede, O. (2011). School, youth culture and territorial stigmatization in Swedish metropolitan districts. Young, 19(2), 159-180.

Smette, I., Hyggen, C., & Bredal, A. (2021). Foreldrerestriksjoner blant minoritetsungdom: omfang og mønstre i og utenfor skolen. Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning, 62(1), 5-26.

Staunæs, D. (2003). Where have all the subjects gone? Bringing together the concepts of intersectionality and subjectification. NORA: Nordic journal of women’s studies, 11(2), 101-110.

What is belonging and why is it important?

by Vanessa May

What is belonging?

Belonging is a sense of ease with oneself and with the surrounding world, often likened to a feeling of being ‘at home’. Many things can contribute to such a sense of ease: we can feel a sense of belonging to a variety of people, places and things. Belonging in other words has many dimensions. In my own work, I have thought of belonging as having three dimensions: relational, cultural and material.

Credit: Pexels Spencer Selover Grayscale Photography of Man Playing Basketball
  1. Relational belonging is something that we feel towards other people, either as individuals or as groups. A person might have a sense of belonging to their family, their neighbourhood or their colleagues.
  2. Cultural belonging refers to belonging at a more abstract level. This is belonging that we feel for example towards our nation or our ethnic group. What binds these groups together is not a personal tie but a shared language, history or outlook on the world. Cultural belonging is also expressed through shared rituals, such as celebrating Christmas, Diwali or Eid.
  3. Material belonging is the sense of belonging that we have with the physical world that we inhabit. For example, we can have a sense of belonging for to particular objects (think for example of important keepsakes you have at home, or photographs of people dear to you), familiar foods or landscapes.
Credit: Unsplash Jason Leung

Belonging is thus a cognitive, emotional and embodied experience. It is something that we can, to a degree, consciously think about, rationalise and explain. The sense of belonging or not belonging evokes emotions of empathy, love, hate, revulsion and so on. We can experience belonging in our bodies, through our sense of smell, touch and sight. Because of this complexity of belonging, we are not always consciously aware of it and might find it difficult to explain why we feel a sense of belonging to particular places, situations or persons.

Indeed, I have argued that it is more difficult to see or notice belonging than not belonging. One explanation for this is that belonging is often a feeling that people take for granted and do not necessarily spend much time analysing. As a result, they can find it more difficult to put into words why exactly they belong. People are more likely to notice and therefore to consciously think about and puzzle through those experiences that seem out of the ordinary, such as when their sense of being at home is disturbed in some way. This is reflected in the fact that there exists much more research about people’s experiences of not belonging than about what they do feel a sense of belonging to.

Credit: Pexels Ion Ceban Ionelceban

Why should social scientists be interested in belonging?

For social scientists, belonging is an interesting focus of research for several reasons. Belonging tells us something important about a person’s sense of self, such as which groups they align themselves with and which values they espouse. For a relational sociologist such as myself, interested in how people interact with and relate to each other, belonging is a crucial element of being human. This is because humans are not isolated individuals but are instead social beings who grow up as part of groups such as families, friendship networks, religious groups or nationalities. The groups that we grow up in shape us in terms of how we think and how we act in the world. We learn who we are in relationships with others. For example, our parents teach us how to behave and reflect back to us what kind of person they understand us to be, and this, in part, comes to inform our sense of self. To say that humans are relational beings is to say that relationships are fundamental to who we are. What follows on from this is that a sense of belonging is fundamental to being human. Indeed, psychologists have deemed belonging to be a basic human need.

Importantly for social scientists, belonging is not just an individual feeling, but is a thoroughly social experience. This means that belonging is not a feeling that we can achieve on our own. We cannot simply choose to belong to a group, culture or nation. For a claim to belonging to be successful, it must be recognised by others in that group.

credit: Unsplash Amer Mughawish

There is much important social science research that explores the experiences of groups whose claims to belonging in society have been denied. Examples are many: working-class people, sexual minorities, ethnic minority groups, migrants and refugees.

Whether claims to belonging are recognised or denied is important because this has real consequences for people’s lives. This is why belonging is a political issue. Groups whose claims to belonging are denied are more likely to experience marginalisation and stigmatisation, which can take violent form.

credit: Unsplash Kyle Glenn

They might also find that they do not benefit from the redistribution of goods in society, meaning that a denial of belonging can have very real material consequences, for example in the form of inadequate housing or poverty. Those who are denied belonging might also find that they are barred from citizenship, which means they are not allowed to fully share in the tangible and intangible common goods to which citizenship ensures access. Who does and does not belong is thus a question of social justice.

Belonging is dynamic

Belonging is not something that once gained is forever there. Instead, a sense of belonging must be constantly negotiated and can wax and wane. A person’s sense of belonging will shift across their lifetime. One reason for this is that people’s relationship to the past, present and future can shift. I found in an analysis of how people of different ages wrote about their sense of belonging that younger people, who assumed they had decades of life ahead of them, tended to be future-oriented when thinking about belonging and spoke of belonging as something very much in the making.

credit: pexels pixabay

In contrast, older people, who were aware of nearing the end of their lifespan, were more likely to think of belonging as something that they were at risk of losing, due for example to reducing physical and cognitive capacities or the death of peers. When talking about belonging, many older people understandably turned their gaze to the past, nostalgically reflecting on experiences of belonging long gone.

People’s sense of belonging can also shift because of broader social changes. This is exemplified by recent work by the American sociologist Michéle Lamont on hope. She has found that there are some previously marginalised groups towards which social attitudes have become more accepting, such as sexual minorities or people living with HIV. These are groups whose claims to belonging, for long denied, have become more successful over time.

credit: pexels Markus Spiske

While it is quite right that social scientists focus on the experiences of marginalised groups who lack a sense of belonging, because it is by understanding the mechanisms that create social inequalities that we can hope to ameliorate social injustices, I find Lamont’s work refreshing in its aim to understand how the conditions of marginalised groups can be improved and the ways in which groups previously excluded from a right to belong have successfully claimed belonging in society.

Author bio

Vanessa May is Professor and Head of Sociology at the University of Manchester and a member of the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives. Her research interests include the self, belonging, temporality, family relationships, migration and qualitative methods. Vanessa has published in a number of journals including Sociology, Sociological Review, Time & Society and British Journal of Sociology. She is the author of Connecting Self to Society: Belonging in a Changing World (Palgrave Macmillan) and co-editor of Sociology of Personal Life (2nd edition, Macmillan) and has a forthcoming book Key Concepts: Families (Polity) out in November 2023.

Theorizing Belonging from the perspective of young former refugees

Tina Mathisen

How do young former refugees go about to create place attachment and belonging in a new home place while at the same time maintaining attachments to other home places? And what does the concept of belonging entail theoretically speaking? These were questions I was grappling with during my doctoral research together with youth of refugee background growing up in rural Norway (Mathisen 2020).

Two people looking at old pictures in a photo book
credit: pexels | cottonbro studio

Uprooting and regrounding: when the meaning of belonging becomes palpable

Belonging is a concept that most of us have a relation to because in a basic sense, it is what we are all striving for in terms of feeling as a part of something bigger than ourselves and as a sense of security. However, as Anthias (2006) has pointed out, it is also something that we often take for granted and don’t think about before it is disrupted or taken away from us. For children and young people of refugee background uprooting and regrounding is often not a onetime experience, but something they have experienced several times on their route to a secure place to live their lives. Having obtained refugee status and being settled in a municipality could therefore be seen as an important first step in the young research participants’ process of making attachments to a new home place because it meant that they were given official recognition of their right to be in Norway. In addition, translocal networks and being able to keep in contact with family and friends from other home places showed to be important for a sense of continuity in the youth’s autobiography. The knowledge that the youth had gained from living in different places and the social support from friends and family in these translocal networks played a role in the process of attaching to a place in the here and now.

three young man by the beach
credit: pexels | cottonbro studio

A personal sense of belonging to people and places

The research was conducted using a mix of participatory methods such as participant observation, in depth interviews, activity diaries, walk-alongs and auto-photography. Being present in the young people’s environments as well as the insights I gained from the activity diaries and photographs, revealed the important role that social and material aspects of place play in creating a sense of belonging. While security and stable settlement in a municipality was essential for feeling safe, sharing everyday time-space routines with other young people was important for the youths to be able to create a sense of normalcy during the settlement phase.

Group of children sitting in a park
credit: pexels | rodnae productions

The school was a particularly important arena because this was where they would meet with other youths (mainly with a migrant background) who would include them in their friendship groups and introduce them to social codes and local place norms. However, where the youths were settled and what type of school they attended mattered in how they could attach to place. Attending preparatory classes made it difficult to make friends with majority youth because these classes were often spatially separated from mainstream classes and lacked natural meeting points. Some of the participants also had to travel a distance from other villages to attend preparatory class, which made it difficult for them to create social networks in the place where they lived as well as to cultivate the social ties they had made at school during after school hours. The activity diaries showed that around half of the youths were involved in organized after school activities, however, this did not mean that the others were not active, they rather tended to meet with friends in more informal settings such as on the playground, at the mall or in the local gym. The way that the youths would and could “do belonging” was also dependent on other aspects such as time spent in Norway age and gender.

picture of a young woman taking a picture
credit: pexels | şeyda nur uğur

While social aspects perhaps are what most of us think of when we think about belonging to a place, the materiality of place has likewise been identified as important for recreational purposes and for feelings of wellbeing and safety among former refugee youths (Sampson & Gifford 2010). Researchers have described how the process of attaching to a place is a process going on between the individual and the environment which is difficult to put into words because it is often bodily and attached to memory and emotions (Cele 2006, Bourke 2017, Mathisen & Cele 2020). Several of the youths in the study had taken photographs of nature and would tell stories about how these particular places had come to mean something to them, how they appreciated the beauty in nature and how it would make them feel. But also, mundane routines and activities like walking to and from school, libraries, or stores were important to become oriented, create familiarity and recognize oneself as part of a place.

Picture of a young man in nature
credit: pexels | talish rasool

Politics of belonging: the relational aspect

These examples suggest the constant and embodied work that the youths’ put into creating and maintaining a sense of belonging, but also what structural constraints they might face. As Allison Pugh wrote in an earlier post on this blog, the personal and political side of belonging is often described separately, although it is important to understand them together. In my research, it became vital to understand them together as the youth’s experiences were never an either or but almost always contained both aspects.

picture of a young woman standing alone
credit: pexels | mikhail nilov

Some of the youths in the study who had lived longer in the municipalities described strong friendship bonds and being familiar with and making use of the place, its landscape as well as commercial and leisure facilities, as what made them feel as if they belonged.  However, as geographers have pointed out, space is not a neutral container for social action, it is rather imbued with intersecting power relations (Molina 2007). This meant that even though the youths themselves could feel a sense of belonging to their local communities, this could be interrupted by negative social encounters such as experiences of racialization and not being confirmed as someone who belongs here. This highlights the relational aspect of belonging were negotiation and boundary making can take place in everyday life encounters and lead to feelings of inclusion or exclusion. Belonging is thus not simply about the work that the youths who seek belonging do, it is also dependent on how other people in a position to confirm or reject their claim to belong react towards them. For former refugee youths, recognition as in being recognized as someone who belongs on equal terms as others in their local communities is essential for experiencing a sense of belonging.

Picture of three kids in a schoolyard
credit: pexels | norma mortenson

Finally, I would like to emphasise how the youths described different belongings on several levels and to different collectives simultaneously. The study showed how belonging can be found locally, within a group of friends, or translocaly within a network of relatives and friends from multiple places as well as to several nations that one might or might not call home. Belonging is thus not something you have once and for all, it is shifting and changing over time and might best be described as a continuous process with multiple connections.

Tina Mathisen is a researcher at the institute for Norwegian Social Research (NOVA) at OsloMet. She holds a PhD in human geography from the Department of Social and Economic Geography at Uppsala University. Her research interests mainly revolve around migration, children and youth, belonging, translocality, postcolonial theory, racism, intersectionality and qualitative method.

References

Anthias, F. (2006). Belonging in a globalizing and unequal world: Rethinking locations. In Yuval-Davis, N., Kannabiran, K. Vieten, U., (Eds.). The situated politics of belonging. London: Sage, p. 12-31.

Bourke, J. (2017) Children’s experiences of their everyday walks through a complex urban landscape of belonging. Children’s Geographies 15(1) 93–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2016.1192582

Cele, S. (2006) Communicating Place. Methods for Understanding Children’s Experience of Place. Almquist & Wiksell International, Stockholm.

Mathisen, T. (2020). Between being and longing: Young former refugees’ experiences of place attachment and multiple belongings. (Ph.D.), Geographica 27. Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University.

Mathisen, T., & Cele, S. (2020). Doing belonging: young former refugees and their active engagement with Norwegian local communities. Fennia – International Journal of Geography, 198(1-2), 39-56. https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.83695

Molina, I. (2007) Intersektionella rumsligheter. Tidskrift för Genusvetenskap 3, 6–21.

Sampson, R. & Gifford, S. M. (2010) Place-making, settlement and well-being: the therapeutic landscapes of recently arrived youth with refugee backgrounds. Health & Place 16(1) 116–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2009.09.004

On Belonging, Sameness and Difference

January 8, 2023

By Allison J. Pugh

About two decades ago, I spent three years listening to and observing children in elementary school in Oakland, California.  At the time, there was a hue and cry about the commercialization of childhood, and a widespread fear of children’s rising materialism.  But what I found instead was that children most often used consumer goods to connect to others rather than to dominate them.  In fact, children lived in what I came to call an “economy of dignity,” in which particular goods and experiences served as currency, or, to use another metaphor, as passports for their social citizenship.  Children relied on particular goods like electronic games to signal to each other that they were part of the same group – and if they did not possess the goods that mattered, they strived to accumulate knowledge about those goods so they could position themselves as culturally fluent in their local environment.  As I wrote in the book that came out of this research, their ultimate goal, the target of all this deployment of goods and knowledge, was establishing themselves as full citizens in their social world: in other words, their belonging.[1]

Belonging is an emotional state with real consequences, whose contours are shaped by powerful societal forces.  Scholars tell us that belonging matters for physical and mental wellbeing; sadly, much of this research is based on what happens in its absence.  Researchers have conducted experiments that find adults who feel excluded are less likely to donate to charity or play games with others, and they give up earlier in a frustrating task.  Others have found that both subjective and objective measures of connectedness can have biological effects: feelings of loneliness and the objective measure of one’s social network size each predict one’s immune response to vaccination, for example.   Psychologists contend belongingness is crucial to human thriving, “almost as compelling a need as food.”[2]  

credit: pexels| rdonae productions

While a number of researchers have divided the emotional dimension (the “personal, intimate, feeling of being ‘at home’”) from its political sources (“the discursive resource which constructs, claims, justifies, or resists forms of socio‐spatial inclusion/exclusion”), I think we should resist such an impulse, as it cordons off the realm of sentiment to an intimate individual sphere devoid of politics. Instead, the two dimensions entwined is how most children – and most people generally – encounter belonging; personal, intimate feelings arise from the personal, intimate experience of power, of being included or excluded because of the meanings ascribed to particular categories and identities enacted in daily life.[3]

On Sameness and Difference

At first pass, the power of belonging might seem to reside in sameness.  Certainly the children I studied (and their parents) were concerned about being different – bringing different food from home for lunch, having different toys or clothes or rituals.  Many scholars worry about the belonging that relies on a certain homogeneity, which then serves to define some people as in or out.[4]

credit: pexels| Norma Mortensen

But this version of belonging both underestimates what is possible and ultimately what is necessary for a better world.  Belonging relies on the cultural significance of not just sameness but also of difference.  While I concluded my book by writing about how parents and teachers could help children achieve sameness – by restricting spending on birthday parties, for example, or by cooperating to buy meaningful large-ticket items together – I also noted that none of us can avoid the experience of being different in our social worlds; given that inevitability, what matters most – what is absolutely pivotal for children’s lives, for their sense of belonging, for their wellbeing – is the meaning that we make of difference. 

How to Connect Across Difference

As it happens, we can actually connect to others across difference.  My latest research finds that such connections are possible when we actually take the trouble to “see” each other.  Seeing each other involves perceiving another person’s perspective or reality, reflecting it back to them in some way, and having them adjust, correct and ultimately accept that reflection, however partial it may be.  In my latest work, I call that interactive process of seeing each other “connective labor,” and I argue that through it, we enact respect for the other, treating them like full human beings who deserve to be known.  But difference is central to this process:  we do not presume that we know them before trying to see them, because it is their very differences that require that we undertake this process together.  Seeing the other is how we acknowledge someone’s differences, and yet share with them a sense of belonging.[5]

credit: pexels| yan krukau

In my recent research, for example, Pamela, an African-American teacher in California, said she actually chose her profession because of a woman who managed to see her when she was a shy 13-year-old who had moved many times with her family, who was so withdrawn that she suffered from selective mutism. “I want to be the teacher that I wanted, and that I needed, and that I finally got,” Pamela told me.  As Pamela’s story tells us, seeing the other is vital work that parents, teachers and other adults do for children.[6]

Children Seeing the Other

Yet children themselves also see the other.  They do so among their peers, when they notice what their friends don’t want to talk about or what they take pride in, even when it violates adult rules; I saw many examples of this in my earlier research, as when a friend leapt in to explain that Jacquette’s father was “in the Big House,” his incarceration serving to underscore why Jacquette cherished the card from him that she was showing us. In fact, seeing the other happens on a much more mundane level; it is something that children do all the time when they engage in social play.  As play researcher Peter Gray reminds us, children have to take the other into account when they play, or they might be left with no playmates. “The golden rule of social play is not ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ Rather, it’s something much more difficult: ‘Do unto others as they would have you do unto them’,” Gray wrote. “To do that, you have to get into other people’s minds and see from their points of view.”  In fact, he argues, “the equality of play is not the equality of sameness. Rather, it is the equality that comes from respecting individual differences and treating each person’s needs and wishes as equally important.”[7]

credit: pexels| anastasia shuraeva

As many scholars have noted, the goal of seeing the other introduces all sorts of problems – can we ever actually know another human being?  Does the process of trying to see the other mean we force them into pre-existing labels that actually deny their particularities?  How do we set aside our preconceived notions about social categories to make a connection with the human being in front of us?  Many of these thorny questions rest on the very real challenges that difference can pose.  Yet as Pamela might tell us, the experience of feeling seen is a profound one, and the practice of seeing another – however imperfectly – is a powerful way to forge a connection.

A deep sense of belonging rests not just on shared sameness, but the purposeful integration across difference. Children and adults can be helped to connect across difference through seeing each other, and organizations like schools and neighborhoods can cultivate connective cultures that enable us to see each other better. The wellbeing of children (and adults) depends on it.

Author’s bio

Allison Pugh Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality at the University of Virginia.


[1] The book that came out of this research was entitled Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children and Consumer Culture (Pugh 2009).

[2]  See Newman et al 2007; Baumeister et al 2005; Pressman et al 2005; Twenge et al 2007. The “food” quote comes from Baumeister and Leary 1995 (p. 498).

[3] The quotes come from Antonsich 2010 (p. 645).

[4]  Some writings on sameness and difference with regard to belonging that have inspired me include Butler (2019), Wright (2015), and Yuval-Davis (2006).

[5] Vanessa May (2013) also finds a role for recognition in belonging.

[6]  I write about Pamela in Pugh 2022.

[7]  The quotes come from an article Gray published in the Aeon online magazine (2013).

References

Antonsich, Marco. «Searching for belonging–an analytical framework.» Geography Compass 4, no. 6 (2010): 644-659.

Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. 1995. The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.

Baumeister, Roy F., C. Nathan DeWall, Natalie J. Ciarocco, and Jean M. Twenge. 2005. «Social exclusion impairs self-regulation.» Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88, no. 4: 589.

Butler, Rose. 2019.  Class, Culture and Belonging in Rural Childhoods. Singapore: Springer.

Gray, Peter. 2013.  “The Play Deficit.” Aeon. September 18. URL: https://aeon.co/essays/children-today-are-suffering-a-severe-deficit-of-play. Accessed January 8, 2023.

May, Vanessa. 2013. Connecting self to society: Belonging in a changing world. New York and London: Palgrave MacMillan.

Newman, Barbara M., Brenda J. Lohman, and Philip R. Newman. 2007. «Peer group membership and a sense of belonging: their relationship to adolescent behavior problems.» Adolescence 42, no. 166.

Pressman, Sarah D., Sheldon Cohen, Gregory E. Miller, Anita Barkin, Bruce S. Rabin, and John J. Treanor. 2005. «Loneliness, social network size, and immune response to influenza vaccination in college freshmen.» Health Psychology 24, no. 3: 297.

Pugh, Allison J. 2022. «Emotions and the systematization of connective labor.» Theory, Culture & Society 39, no. 5: 23-42.

Pugh, Allison J. 2009.  Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children and Consumer Culture.  Berkeley:  University of California Press.

Twenge, Jean M., Roy F. Baumeister, C. Nathan DeWall, Natalie J. Ciarocco, and J. Michael Bartels. 2007. «Social exclusion decreases prosocial behavior.» Journal of personality and social psychology 92, no. 1: 56.

Wright, Sarah. «More-than-human, emergent belongings: A weak theory approach.» Progress in Human Geography 39, no. 4 (2015): 391-411.

Yuval-Davis, Nira. 2006. «Belonging and the politics of belonging.» Patterns of Prejudice 40, no. 3: 197-214.

Children’s engagement with and belonging to their environments.

by Asher Ben-Arieh

Recent years have brought focus to the importance of understanding context when approaching the topic of child wellbeing, with both theoretical and empirical evidence mounting to support this movement (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Coulton & Spilsbury, 2014). Whilst research has most typically investigated the contexts of family, school, and socioeconomic status when studying children (Goswami, 2012; Lee & Yoo, 2015; Gross-Manos & Massarwi, 2022), this contribution, premised on children’s rights and their participatory perspective, emphasizes the importance of also exploring the environment and nature as contexts which shape children’s lives.

Children playing on a swing in nature.
credit: pexels | rodnae productions

Defining the meanings of ‘environment’ and ‘nature’ is not an easy task, in fact, it is often a problematic one, as people may experience and understand the same surroundings in broad and varied ways. Classically, nature is the term used to refer to an outdoor space, separated from humans. However, the environment refers to the connection which people have to a place, including the meanings, values, and interactions they associate with a physical space (Spiteri et al., 2022). Highlighting and examining the role of the environment and nature in children’s lives will help elevate current understandings of the importance of context for children.

A child climbing on a tree.
credit: pexels | allan mas

A key environment to consider in a child’s life is their neighborhood. Neighborhoods usually refer to urban areas, villages, or villages in rural areas, and these areas are not simply geographical territories, they are units of social organization that symbolize meaning to people as places to live, work and perform their daily tasks. The neighborhoods in which children reside are a space in which they are likely to spend a great amount of time in, so they represent important contexts in their lives (Allison et al., 1999). Research has shown that neighborhoods and their characteristics can influence children’s well-being (Rees, 2017).

Children playing in a field.
credit: pexels | quang nguyen vinh

Within their environment, children must feel free to play and experiment, feel secure to succeed or fail at tasks, and push themselves. For children, such activities are a part of their process of socialization, which is crucial to their development and well-being. Specifically, recent studies have shown that the natural environment of a child, a place in which they may engage with various components and explore, has a great contribution to their well-being. Furthermore, research has indicated that active engagement by children with their environment is associated with various developmental benefits, like igniting a sense of independence and autonomy, and providing a range of other physical, cognitive, and affective benefits (Adams & Savahl, 2017).

A child drawing with charcoal on a street.
credit: pexels | allan mas

Another important environment in a child’s life is the climate in which they live. Thinking on a bigger scale, there is growing evidence that humans are negatively impacting climate change, and this may hold negative repercussions on the well-being of children. As climate change worsens, it is more likely that children of future generations will be most heavily impacted by these changes. Moreover, growing media coverage of the negative consequences relating to global climate change has caused growing eco-anxiety among children and youth. Eco-anxiety, also known as climate distress or climate anxiety, is the anxiety one may experience relating to the global climate crisis and the impending threat of environmental disaster, causing symptoms like panic attacks, insomnia, and obsessive thinking (Cianconi et al., 2020), and this is harmful to children.  Also, the wish to protect nature and climate also leads to a growing number of children and young people all over the world being involved in demonstrations and different actions.

Young people holding signs saying "our planet our future" and "there is no planet B".
credit: karolina gabowska

In summary, considering the importance of nature and the environment as influential contexts in children’s lives these contexts must be recognized as an issue relating to children’s rights. Also, bearing in mind that children are the experts of their lives, it is imperative to talk to and learn from them directly regarding the importance of these contexts for them. Lastly, it is clear that we must recognize the efforts of children in dealing with the issue of climate change and appreciate their importance in this fight.

A child playing in a field.
credit: pexels | miriam salgado

Asher Ben-Arieh, is the Haruv Chair for the study of Child Maltreatment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Prof. of Social Work and the Dean of the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare as of September 2021. Asher is also the director of the Haruv Institute in Jerusalem. He served for 20 years as the associate director of Israel’s National Council for the Child.

A boy holding a sign saying "There's no planet B"
credit: pexels | anna shvets

References

Adams, S., & Savahl, S. (2017). Nature as children’s space: A systematic review. The Journal of Environmental Education, 48(5), 291-321.‏

Allison, K. W., Crawford, I., Leone, P. E., Trickett, E., Perez-Febles, A., Burton, L. M., & Le Blanc, R. (1999). Adolescent substance use: Preliminary examinations of school and neighborhood context. American journal of community psychology, 27(2), 111-141.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Harvard University Press.

Cianconi, P., Betrò, S., & Janiri, L. (2020). The impact of climate change on mental health: a systematic descriptive review. Frontiers in psychiatry, 74.

Coulton, C. J., & Spilsbury, J. C. (2014). Community and Place-Based Understanding of Child Well-Being. In Handbook of Child Well-Being (pp. 1307–1334). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_54

Gross-Manos, D., & Massarwi, A. A. (2022). Material deprivation and subjective poverty association with subjective well-being reported by children: Religiosity as a protective factor. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry.‏

Goswami, H. (2012). Social Relationships and Children’s Subjective Weil-Being. Social Indicators Research, 107(3), 575–588. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41476594

Lee, B.J., Yoo, M.S. Family, School, and Community Correlates of Children’s     Subjective Well-being: An International Comparative Study. Child Ind Res 8, 151–175 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-014-9285-z

Rees, G. (2017). Children’s Views on Their Lives and Well-being. Springer Cham. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-65196-5

Spiteri, J., Higgins, P., & Nicol, R. (2022). It’s like a Fruit on a Tree: Young Maltese Children’s Understanding of the Environment. Early Child Development and Care, 192(7), 1133-1149.

Leisure time troubles

Markus Lynum

For some, socialization, and the formation of both strong and weak ties with others seem to come around as a natural part of the life course and provide them with a sense of belonging. By having to nurture relations with family, peers and other role models in their immediate social surroundings, children may gain access to positive experiences, memories and social support tying them to the social fabric of their local context. These experiences may provide them with a sense of security in their everyday life, a positive outlook on life chances and their future and positive coping strategies when faced with adversity.

picture of a child playing
credit: pexels | mikhail nilov

Considering all the benefits that “a sense of belonging” may bring around, it’s important to note that they are emotional and social resources that are contingent on individuals having access to integrative processes that allow them to develop ties with others. In the context of childhood, these processes are especially important when it comes to gaining access to their peer network and forming friendships with others. These interactions and processes may take place at schools, during out-of-school activities and in more informal settings.

Picture of a boy reading.
credit: pexels | cottonbro studio

In these scenarios, the success of children’s interactions with peers may be contingent on their ability to participate equally, adhere to the rules of the given activity and adequately regulate their emotions when engaging with others. In the same way that the socioeconomic position of one’s family may be a source of unequal access to cultural and economic resources, disability can be a source of unequal access to important social arenas during childhood.

Picture of two teenagers hanging out in a living room.
credit: pexels | karolina grabowska

In the research project BUDGET, which is financed by the Research Council of Norway, we’ve investigated the material and immaterial consequences and costs that caring for children with ADHD or cerebral palsy may have on the household. The project is designed to capture how living with these diagnoses may drive household costs and is, in and of itself, not centered around the social integration of their children and their experience of belonging. While the main scope of our research is to study how household expenditure and employment can be affected by caring for a child with ADHD or cerebral palsy, as well as how the households adapt to and organize their everyday life, very preliminary analyses highlight some trends that leave room for reflection. Although not a part of the project’s focus, parents interviewed in our sample highlighted how finding suitable social arenas for their children can be a challenge.

Picture of two teenagers painting a poster.
credit: pexels | karolina grabowska

In the case of ADHD, parents described that associated traits such as inattentiveness, impulsiveness, hyperactivity, and mood swings may impact how the child functions socially in relation to their peers and how long they maintain their interests in hobbies and activities. This can maybe lead to children facing an uphill battle when it comes to experiencing social inclusion as it can impact how they function in various social arenas. This can also potentially place the child at a heightened risk of ending up in conflict with peers, being perceived as a more “challenging” child to deal with by other adults and resulting in them not being included to the same degrees as others. This can be a source of both stress and discomfort for both the parents and the child as it can make the challenges that may accompany ADHD salient and highlight the child’s “otherness” within their immediate social context.

Picture of two girls in front of a laptop.
credit: pexels | karolina grabowska

In the case of cerebral palsy, the challenges of social inclusion are usually more physical, and can therefore be a larger challenge to overcome, especially in places where leisure time activities may be less diversified and centered around sports. Depending on the degree of cerebral palsy, a child may have a minor or major physical disability that translates into the increased difficulty in participating in a lot of arenas. As in the case of ADHD, this can make it harder for the children and parents to find suitable social arenas where they can participate on the same terms as able-bodied children.

Picture of two girls looking at a phone.
credit: pexels | cottonbro-studio

The diagnoses of children can impact their opportunity to feel belonging and highlights a structural challenge in how childhood is organized that may generate social exclusion. It can physically and socially prevent the children from accessing the same activities and meeting points their peers participate in, and consequently put them at a heightened risk of social isolation. Their possibility to participate and socialize with other children outside the classroom can further be prone to the different opportunities and leisure time activities where they live, but also to their parents’ time and resourcefulness. Having a child with a disability can make it more difficult for parents to ask for support (e. g. help with driving their kids to football practice), as their child may have more needs than others.  The intersection of a child’s disability with their family’s capacity to spend time and resources on facilitating their access to important social arenas may generate both increased and decreased opportunities for social integration. While not an issue actively studied and explored within the framework of BUDGET, it does highlight an area of potential sociological interest when it comes to unequal opportunities to participate that calls for further investigation.

Picture of a relaxed boy.
credit: pexels | karolina grabowska

About Markus Lynum

Markus is working as a scientific assistant at Consumption research Norway (SIFO) and is a sociologist by training. In addition to working on issues of consumer policy he is interested in exploring the interconnections between inequality and access to integrative processes which he also wrote his master’s thesis on.

On the implicit policy of the term “belonging”

author: Anita Borch

In social theory, the term “belonging” refers to a sense of ease; of “fitting in” in our immediate social context – be it people, places, or materials. For most of us belonging is positive, providing us with a sense of confidence and trust in the world, triggering us to believe in ourselves and our ability to create a life worth living. It may also have the opposite effect, connecting us to wrong places and people like criminal gangs. At a societal level, belonging is a double-edged phenomenon, leading to healthier and higher educated populations, lower rates of unemployment and robust economies. At the same time, it may split people into “in groups” or “out groups” and cause conflicts and economic recessions. Not belonging is usually associated with marginalization, social exclusion and lower levels of social welfare, but can also motivate us to turn negative spirals into positive and thereby increase social mobility. Overall, belonging and not belonging refer to complex human experiences in power to influence individuals and societies and drivers of social stabilization and change.

Sign with the text "you belong".
credit: Pexels Tim Mossholder

But one thing is how terms are understood in theory. Another cup of tea is how the term is used in practice. From a previous review, I have learned that the term “belonging” often lacks definition and that its meanings tend to overlap those of familiar terms like “social participation” and “social inclusion”. However, when I studied the use of these terms myself, I observed some differences that are worth reflecting upon.

Kids walking in a group.
credit: pexels Max Fischer

First of all, the study indicates that “belonging” is the preferred term used in studies of immigrant children’s connections. This preference seems, to some extent, to have replaced the preference for the term “social integration”, which was more frequently used in studies of immigrant children’s connections in the 1990s. Moreover, and more importantly, the preference for the term “belonging” contrast with the result of studies on the connections of the majority of children, in which “social participation” is the preferred term.

Kids sitting and studying.
credit: pexels Norma Mortenson

As a researcher studying children’s belonging, I feel some ambivalence regarding this latter result. Since belonging basically refers to an emotion whereas participation is often connected to an activity like sports or some kinds of decision making, it cannot be ruled out that I, by using the term belonging, implicitly and highly unintentionally suggest that immigrant children generally show less agency and, hence, that they are more passive than majority children. If so, I happen to promote a view on immigrant children that I strongly oppose. In line with other researchers studying children’s belonging, I see all children as actively involved in the process of creating belonging and not belonging. Belonging and not belonging is not one-way but mutual processes between immigrant children and their social surroundings. Not to be misunderstood, I need to make the dynamic aspect of belonging and not belonging very explicit in further work.

Kids working together.
credit: pexels Max Fischer

Whereas “belonging” and “social participation” often refer to something children feel or do, the term “social inclusion” is more frequently used to describe settings. For example, a school, a sports club, or a park in the city are typically regarded as “inclusive” if they are easily accessible for all children. The underlying assumption underpinning this view seems to be that if settings are inclusive enough, children will be included. If not, they will be excluded. The agency of the social inclusion is thereby not assigned to the children who are or should be included, but to the settings – or, more precisely, the adults responsible for creating these settings. The lack of agency and responsibility of children may explain why “social inclusion” seems to be the preferred term in studies of children with disabilities, who, in general, tend to be assigned less agency and responsibilities than other children in society at large.

Child playing.
credit: pexels koolshooters

Do we here see the contours of a hierarchy, in which the term “social participating” signals children with a high degree of agency and the term “social inclusion” signals children with a low degree of agency, and in which “belonging” is placed somewhere in the middle, signaling less agency than “social participation” but more than “social inclusion”? If so, the use of terms in highly cited literature on immigrant children’s connections implicitly suggests that immigrant children can be ascribed less agency than majority children, but more than children with disabilities.

Kids playing.
credit: pexels Ron Lach

The reflections made in this blog are based on observations made in a study that has recently been reported in the paper “Immigrant Children’s Connections to People and the World Around Them: A Critical Discourse Review of Academic Literature” (Borch, 2022). As mentioned, previous research has concluded that the use of terms addressing children’s connection tends to overlap, which suggests that it does not matter what kind of terms we are using. At first sight, this suggestion seems reasonable considering that terms get most of their meaning from contexts (cf. Wittgenstein). However, if we take a closer look and compare how different terms are used in practice, implicit messages may be revealed and other conclusions may be drawn. Overall, the study has shown that the terms used in studies of children’s connections can be highly political in the sense of signalling who have agency and who should be given responsibility or not. Indeed, belonging is an emotion with the power of changing children and societies. So too is how we are using terms in research and policy.

The first paper of the BELONG project has been launched

Anita Borch

The first article on the BELONG project has recently been launched. It is entitled “Immigrant Children’s Connections to People and the World Around Them: A Critical Discourse Review of Academic Literature” and is published in the journal Social Inclusion. The article describes the main characteristics of highly cited research on the connections of immigrant children and compares this literature with research on the connection of children in general.

“Connection” is used as a generic term covering relationships described with terms like “social participation”, “social integration” and “social inclusion/exclusion”. Important observations of this study are that the literature on children’s connections tends to be published within the scientific discipline of psychology and addresses immigrant children settled in the US. It also tends to ignore material and technological aspects of children’s connections, as well as how children of immigrant backgrounds intersect with other social characteristics associated with stigmatization and discrimination such as poverty and disability. As these aspects play a significant role in children’s everyday life and connections, they need to be covered in future studies.

For more details, read the full paper here: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/5253.

Computer on the floor.
credit: pexels Vlada Karpovich