School exclusion and Situated Instructional Belonging
Team
Professor Brianna L. Kennedy (Lead)
CenTCS
University of Glasgow
Abstract
School exclusions disproportionately affect students from nondominant sociocultural groups in various national contexts. Students who experience school exclusion have lower academic and social-emotional outcomes due to the exclusions themselves. Scientific examinations of situations, practices, and contexts that support students’ belonging in classrooms rather than their exclusion may offer antidotes. This project builds upon the PI’s trajectory of cross-national research studies on school exclusion and belonging as well as CenTCS’ Project Stream 2 output from 2025-2026 (Dis)Connections in Schooling to better understand pupil disengagement and exclusion in Scotland and to develop a conceptual and empirical rationale for situated instructional belonging. The current focus of this strand of work is on data analysis of a pilot study that is furthering the conceptual development of situated instructional belonging as teaching practice.
Keywords
school exclusion; situated instructional belonging; culturally responsive pedagogy; disengaged youth; NEET