New with Budrich:
by Sharon du Plessis-Schneider
About the book
Our social interactions are driven by complex biopsychic processes that are complicated by the fact that humans are individuals and at the same time members of one or more social systems, such as schools. This book contributes to explaining the social mechanisms influencing students‘ “need to belong” fulfilment at school. The theoretical framework is informed by human needs understood as cognitive mechanisms of neural processes that regulate human behaviour and bio-values. The fieldwork was conducted in two secondary schools in Austria and Australia. Based on the findings, the transformative three-step approach suggests a course of action for student belonging.
Dear Sharon, with your publication, you aim to explain the social mechanisms influencing students‘ “need to belong” fulfilment at school. What does “need to belong“ mean, and which question did you tackle exactly?
The term “need to belong” means our biopsychic and social needs tensions. In my research, “need to belong” is based on 19 needs (Obrecht, 2009, p. 27). When the brain registers a need tension, human beings go into action – ideally meeting the need and reducing the tension. In the case of social need tensions, we seek to establish and maintain strong emotional bonds that enable access to reciprocal relationships with another person or social group. For this to be successful, students require access to resources such as mutual support and active interest in one another’s needs’ fulfilment – expressed through care, affection, cooperation, and feeling that they matter to each other. In this way, the psychic state of belonging can be achieved. Accordingly, belonging is a feeling, i.e., a mental state that can be achieved when the previously mentioned resources are accessible in a person’s social environment.
With this book, I want to emphasise that the “need to belong” is broader than belonging and using inverted commas to highlight the fact, that more than one need is included. But why does this matter? Distinguishing between the “need to belong” and belonging helps to identify the practical problems of students in meeting their needs and reaching the psychic state of belonging. The concern is that persistent and unresolved practical problems, such as the absence or loss of socio-cultural membership in the classroom, can negatively affect students’ wellbeing. This brings to the fore the rationales for undertaking the study: firstly, to explore the problems students face in meeting their “need to belong”. Secondly, to identify the strategies to achieve belonging. For data collection, students were invited to participate in focus group interviews. At the same time, putting student voice in the centre of the research process.
Notably, the student-peer and student-teacher social-exchange relationships are crucial to access the resources required for “need to belong” fulfilment. This rests on the fact that the student is an individual and, at the same time, a member of the different social levels of the school. These social levels can facilitate or hinder a person’s access to resources. Much the same, the other members of the school social system, i.e., peers, teachers, school management and social workers, require access to resources for their needs fulfilment. In this sense, the different social levels are connected, which is at the core of the system theory that grounds my research. It infers that things in existence are bound by their ontologies and properties, providing general guidelines to explain the complexities of human beings and their relationships. The nexus between the different social levels of the school, and the individual students, directed me towards questions about the roles of values and norm in reducing the “need to belong” tensions. A key question of my research was whether the different school levels promote or hinder the students’ “need to belong” fulfilment and facilitate their wellbeing – the biopsychic state of a person with sufficient need regulation and fulfilment.
Could you say more about your conceptual framework? How did you develop the idea to compare Austrian and Australian students?
My conceptual framework is underpinned by ontological materialism and evolutionary emergent systemism, i.e., the intersection of the individual and collective, with both equally important. A unique feature of emergent systemism ontology is that it focuses on the complexities of human beings as individuals and members of social systems and their subsystems. This conceptual framework identifies and explains the mechanisms and processes in social systems to detect how they tick. Given that social systems are dynamic and in flux, this underscores the significance of transparency and accountability in the research process. As nothing exists in isolation, the different social levels of the school, i.e., the structure, processes, and mechanisms, influence the individual and their “need to belong” fulfilment. Ontological systemism has both conceptual and practical implications for my research. Conceptual means the framework that is developed to make sense of things. Practical refers to the research design, objectives, data collection, and analysis set to identify, describe, and explain the social mechanisms associated with students’ “need to belong” fulfilment at school.
In thinking back to the start of the research, the macro-social policy approaches to immigration in Austria and Australia sparked my interest in examining students’ perspectives on the “need to belong”. It seemed an exciting starting point to think about research on human needs, specifically around universality, i.e., the students in Austria and Australia have the same needs but not resources which are context-dependent. Austrian immigration policies generally restrict immigration, particularly for people outside the European Union. In contrast, the Australian immigration system is engineered to receive immigrants based on a stringent point system. I was curious to learn about the possible overlaps and differences concerning migration in the school systems – bearing in mind that both countries ratified the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child (UNCRC) in the early 1990s
Which insights does your work offer, and how can social work use them?
My research findings indicate that social problems are linked to students’ lack of social integration and socio-cultural membership at different school social levels. From these results, it can be inferred that student belonging is affected by external factors, such as the values and norms of other individuals or the social group that students endorse to meet their “need to belong”. Thus, to meet the “need to belong”, students require positive interactions and social-exchange relationships with peers, teachers, and school staff. But how exactly does this manifest? Student belonging is evident through mutual support and interest in each other’s biological, psychic, and social needs fulfilment – on the different social levels of the school that play a central role in students’ access to satisfiers for “need to belong” fulfilment.
I developed a theoretical model of “need to belong”(dis)satisfiers from the data analysis that addresses three social levels – classmates, teachers, and the school system. This indicates two directions to relieve “need to belong” tensions, namely facilitating student access to resources or satisfiers versus hindering access. Action guidelines were developed based on the transformative three-step approach to demonstrate remedying social problems related to the “need to belong” fulfilment (Staub-Bernasconi 2018). The examples for the guideline were generated from the student statements extracted from the focus group transcriptions. This illustrates the theory (the description and explanation/s of social problems that students face because they are thwarted in meeting their needs) underpinning social work intervention/s and the steps for practical action – based on the scientific and ethical-moral forms of knowledge. At the same time, the guidelines endorse rights-based social work interventions and the International Federation of Social Workers Statement of Ethical Principles (2018). The guidelines are tools for social workers to engage in problem-solving with students from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. This entails developing and implementing interventions that are geared toward different-sized social systems, such as the micro- (individual, teacher, parent/s), meso- (social group, i.e., class cohort, school social system) and macro-levels (e.g., government social policy). It is an ecological approach that is in line with social works triple mandate because it supports students to gain access to resources for “need to belong” fulfilment through legitimate means, i.e., not to impede the need fulfilment of classmates, teachers, and other school members.
The crux of the matter for social workers is that human beings have biological, psychic, and social need tensions, i.e., practical problems. If a student cannot meet their needs, this can lead to social problems – the core focus or object-based of social work as a profession and discipline that seeks to reduce and prevent such problems. As mentioned above, needs are not to be confused with resources or satisfiers, which are context-dependent. Notably, “need to belong” fulfilment does not mean establishing an optimal state of equilibrium because there are no equilibria but only approximations of such states. The states are usually contradicted by opposing processes. Thus, a so-called stable or static state is not attainable because the “need to belong” is an ongoing process that requires access to resources to reach the psychic state of belonging.
Which new questions arise from your work?
I want to highlight three topic areas for future research: firstly, my findings indicate that further research is needed on the power differentials, i.e., enabling and hindering power forms. For example, students’ “need to belong” can be fulfilled through participation and cooperation. This is underpinned by the affirmation that students are individuals, i.e., subjects and social actors who think, plan and act – entitled to the rights set out in the UNCRC. Because of this, and in line with the triple mandate, school social workers support students to gain access to resources for need fulfilment through legitimate means. This requires enabling power forms. Future research should examine the interplay between the students, the school social levels and the related power sources. Specifically, evaluate projects targeting student participation, goal-directed social exchanges, and the corresponding power forms.
Secondly, the research participants mentioned a lack of student-friendly information about the objectives of school social work. Exploring school social work’s specific role and corresponding functions in future research with students would reduce this gap. It entails the examination of social facts by describing and explaining the underlying mechanisms that give rise to negative connotations of school social work. Similarly, as mentioned above, the research could be undertaken using the UNCRC as an analytical framework. For example, Article 3, the child’s best interest, and Article 12, the child’s right to participate and be heard.
Thirdly, I propose that future research examines the thoughts and views of teachers, school management, school staff, social workers, and parents on the mechanisms and processes of the school social system for school development in line with systemism. The focus could be on the structure, dynamics and transactions of biological, psychic, social, and cultural systems – building on the transdisciplinary explanatory base for social work. This would entail defining, explaining, and making (conditional) forecasts about the possible outcomes of social conditions that hinder students’ “need to belong”.
This is why I have chosen Barbara Budrich as my publishing partner:
I was attracted to Barbara Budrich, a well-known and highly reputable academic publishing house that provides authors with expert advice. All stages of the publication process were sign-posted, information was relayed easily, and the whole team’s communication was excellent. The professional help and expertise I received from the staff throughout the publication process have been invaluable. It was reassuring to know that my publication was in the best hands. I highly recommend Barbara Budrich as a publishing house synonymous with outstanding quality.
About Sharon du Plessis-Schneider
Sharon du Plessis-Schneider is a Senior Social Work Lecturer. She completed her PhD research in social work science at the University of Education in Weingarten, Germany. She received her MA from the Centre for Postgraduate Studies (MRMA/ZPSA) in conjunction with the Catholic University in Berlin, Germany. She was a social worker for over 15 years, including serving as the head of a school social work agency in Austria’s western region – Vorarlberg. Her social work practice is marked by the focus on social work’s triple mandate – human rights and the nexus between social work theories and action. Her area of research and publication includes human needs, human rights, system theory, scientific realism, migration, and school social work. She has developed and taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses on human rights, ethics and social policy, social work science and international social work with a specific emphasis on restorative justice practices in South Africa and Australia. Her courses are dedicated to developing scientific guidelines for action with strong references to community empowerment. Recently, she has focused on teaching and skills training around the impact of climate change in social work and using applied ethics to mitigate the possible effects of climate-related events. International interdisciplinary collaborations (e.g., in Belgium, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland and Ireland) provide new insights into the human rights implications of climate justice and the related glocal challenges.
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by Sharon du Plessis-Schneider
