Belonging

Credit: Norma Mortenson from Pexels A new study has shed light on the crucial role school belonging plays in shaping mental well-being in adolescents. School belonging—characterized by a positive affect towards school, strong relationships with teachers, and feeling socially valued—has long been associated with immediate benefits for students' mental health. …

Returning to his home country of Romania after a period of living in Belgium, Stefan finds a new metier as a shepherd, tending to a flock of sheep in the countryside. His daily rituals, as well as his friendships with fellow herdsmen, are captured with a vivid intimacy in Jannes Callens’s impressionistic documentary. Delicately transitioning between the blue hues of daybreak, the golden sunlight of the day, and the inkiness of night, the painterly cinematography echoes Stefan’s in-between state as he navigates a new…

Students at a university. Credit: Keira Burton, Pexels, CC0 (creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) In a study of nearly 5,000 North American first-year college students, those who were more extroverted, more agreeable, or less neurotic were more likely to feel a greater sense of belonging at school. Alexandria Stubblebine, an independent researcher in Ocala, Florida, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the…

Researchers surveyed hundreds of volunteers from 12 festivals across Iowa, Michigan and Kansas for their study. Credit: Deb Berger/Iowa State University During Orange City's three-day tulip festival each May, the northwest Iowa town attracts roughly 40,000 visitors, more than six times its population. People come for the blooms and parades, traditional Dutch food and musical theater. For the community, it's an opportunity to…

Educational psychology professor Nidia Ruedas-Gracia was a co-author of the paper. Credit: Lindsay Hundley College students' sense of belonging is believed to have important and far-reaching implications, contributing to academic achievement and persistence at college as well as offering protective effects against anxiety and depression. …

Auction house Sotheby's announced Friday seven non-fungible tokens from bankrupt cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital sold for about $2.5 million.Of the tokens, "Fidenza #725," an image with graphic dashes and curves in a muted palette of cream, yellow, pink and black, fetched the highest price at over $1 million. Three Arrows Capital purchased it for 135 ether in 2021, equal to about $341,786 at the time, according to DappRadar. The auction was part of liquidating Three Arrows, according to a February memo…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain While previous research has focused primarily on anti-Black racism in predominantly white spaces, a study led by DeMarcus Jenkins, assistant professor of education (educational leadership) in the Penn State College of Education, examined the educational experiences of Black students in a predominantly Latino high school. The students' sense of unbelonging and feeling that their experiences…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A massive, Stanford-led study has found that a brief exercise addressing common concerns about belonging in college increased first-year completion rates on students' local campus, especially for students in racial-ethnic and social-class groups that were less likely historically to complete the first year at that school. …

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain May the 4th is almost a religious holiday for Star Wars fans, when they make annual pilgrimages to re-released films in theaters, attend costumed conventions and plan themed parties. If "The Force" is defined as "a mysterious energy field created by life that binds the galaxy together," then May…

The Things That We Lost explores the trauma of a British-Gujarati family with hyphenated identities. Did you set out to write a story of belonging, love and loss? PREMIUM Author Jyoti Patel (Mark Strauss) One of the main themes I wanted to explore in the novel was belonging, specifically within the Indian diaspora that settled in the UK via East Africa. There’s often a focus on what’s been gained from that twice migrant journey, but there’s also a loss of place, home and identity to acknowledge. I wanted to…