Belonging across contexts: constructions of belonging for minoritized children in two educational spaces

Sense of belonging is crucial to children’s wellbeing and social adaptation. However, minoritized children often experience a lower sense of school belonging than their majority peers. While research has explored school belonging within mainstream education, little attention has been given to how minoritized children navigate multiple educational spaces. This study addresses this gap by examining the experiences of minoritized children attending both mainstream and supplementary schools in Flanders, Belgium. This study adopts a spatialized approach to belonging, recognizing that children actively construct their sense of belonging within and across different educational environments. Through in-depth interviews with 29 children, two key themes emerged: (1) ‘Shared cultural repertoires ’–the ways in which children develop a sense of belonging by drawing on common cultural reference points such as language, media, and religious identity–and (2) ‘Linguistic instrumentalization,’ which highlights how children strategically use language to navigate inclusion and exclusion. These findings demonstrate that children exercise their agency in shaping their belonging through the interplay of relationships, spaces, and emotions. By foregrounding the role of supplementary schools, this study expands understandings of school belonging and offers new insights into how minoritized children negotiate identity and inclusion across educational settings.