The belonging ecosystem framework: an investigation of belonging and welcome in greece & a collection of strategies for global classrooms
by Erin McCarthy, 2022 Fulbright Distinguished award in teaching research Award Grantee
What is the framework? |
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The Belonging Ecosystem Framework is an opportunity to learn with curiosity, synthesize with reflection, and take action for growth.
This website has all the tools and strategies needed to apply the framework to your education ecosystem:
40+ SCHOOLS & INFORMAL EDUCATION SPACES
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The foundation of the framework are the questions driving the work to create belonging. This foundation supports pillars focused on values, student leadership, community and global collaboration. At the top, the outcome for every child: comfortable, safe, connected, supported, proud, included, heard, and understood.
How to use the framework
First, reflect using the audit tool. Then explore any of the four pillars and 172 strategies. Collectively they address the complex educational challenge facing schools around the world - How to create a culture of welcome and belonging for all children.
To understand the Greek perspective, I first define philotimo and then offer strategies for the classroom to help live shared values. Each of the four pillars describes an essential element of belonging and connects it to the framework, then provides strategies from Greek classrooms.
The framework is not a how-to, step-by-step guide but a collection of best practices, reflection opportunities, and snapshots of real teachers in action. The strategies are relevant in any education system because an asset-based community development lens has been applied.
Teachers are creative, imaginative innovators who are experts on their students and schools. You bring your own experience, skills, values, and cultural beliefs to this work, and the framework is an invitation to respond and create. Architect Frank Geary said, "When you are making something, you are in a creative space when you are having a conversation with the thing." I invite you to join the conversation to create your own ecosystems of welcome and belonging.
To understand the Greek perspective, I first define philotimo and then offer strategies for the classroom to help live shared values. Each of the four pillars describes an essential element of belonging and connects it to the framework, then provides strategies from Greek classrooms.
The framework is not a how-to, step-by-step guide but a collection of best practices, reflection opportunities, and snapshots of real teachers in action. The strategies are relevant in any education system because an asset-based community development lens has been applied.
Teachers are creative, imaginative innovators who are experts on their students and schools. You bring your own experience, skills, values, and cultural beliefs to this work, and the framework is an invitation to respond and create. Architect Frank Geary said, "When you are making something, you are in a creative space when you are having a conversation with the thing." I invite you to join the conversation to create your own ecosystems of welcome and belonging.
How was this framework created?
Inspired by Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory, I looked beyond the individual classroom to understand educational ecosystems. By visiting a wide variety of schools in Greece, I learned from Greek educators and students about educational practices, policies, and strategies. I interviewed teachers, leadership, students, activists, and parents and observed nearly forty Greek schools and many informal education spaces. Then I analyzed these observations, notes, artifacts, and photographs and created the Belonging Ecosystem Framework.
The framework synthesizes current scholarship surrounding belonging, values, connected learning, ecosystems of change, storytelling, meaning-making, and global citizenship collaboration with my research in Greece, observing educators and students for five months in 2022.
This research was made possible by a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Research Fellowship which allowed me to conduct independent research throughout Greece from January to June 2022.
These opinions are my own and do not reflect the Fulbright Foundation or the State Department.
The framework synthesizes current scholarship surrounding belonging, values, connected learning, ecosystems of change, storytelling, meaning-making, and global citizenship collaboration with my research in Greece, observing educators and students for five months in 2022.
This research was made possible by a Fulbright Distinguished Awards in Teaching Research Fellowship which allowed me to conduct independent research throughout Greece from January to June 2022.
These opinions are my own and do not reflect the Fulbright Foundation or the State Department.