'Be yourself, but don't be weird': conformity, performance, and contradictions in early adolescent students' advice for belonging at school

This study explores open-ended student responses representing advice for belonging from all students in one junior high school with 3 grades of youth ages 12-16 (n = 618). Nearly 5% of responses indicated that there was no way to belong at all. A variety of ideas about what matters for belonging in school emerged, including features of academic life and relationships with teachers, as well as friendships. Surprisingly, responses suggesting personal dispositional qualities far exceeded any other emergent themes. These included calls to be nice and to be outgoing as well as calls to avoid being 'weird'. Managing and forming friendships were also very important. Chi-square analysis was used to explore differences across basic student characteristics for student positioning toward these emergent concepts of belonging. Gender and grade level stood out as significant, raising questions about how schools can organize to support belonging for students in middle level education. These youth represent the school context as a social and emotional space where they perceive normative dispositions are managed for belonging and where they grapple with authenticity. Implications surface for how to support students during important school transitions by attending to the social and emotional geographies over which young adolescents must traverse.