ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Psychology in Education
"...Your Opinion is Counted Even Though You're New Here": Experiences That Enhance Teacher Belonging
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, United States
- 2San Diego State University, San Diego, United States
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Sense of belonging is a fundamental human need and driver of human behavior. A large corpus of literature explores the antecedents and benefits of increased sense of belonging for students in K-12 contexts. However, scant research has examined the antecedents of belonging for K-12 teachers. Drawing on interview data from 39 teachers in one school district, this study explores experiences that foster school sense of belonging in teachers new to the district. We found five overarching themes related to enhancing teacher belonging: (1) collegial support, (2) leadership support and trust, (3) feeling valued and heard, (4) collaboration, and (5) socializing and creating friendships with colleagues. This paper offers insights for school leadership and new avenues for future research.
Keywords: Belonging, elementary school, qualitative research, Sense of belonging at work, teachers
Received: 19 Dec 2025; Accepted: 04 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Bjorklund Jr and Karnopp. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Peter Bjorklund Jr
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.