Chapter 12: Using Digital Narratives to Create a Sense of Belonging Among Storytellers in the Classroom

Preservice teachers created stories of culture and family identities in order to become reflective teachers in the urban classrooms (Mitchell, 2019). They used reflective practice and the writing process within sociocultural theory to identify what was important to them in order to identify their own cultural identities (Freire, 2000; Gay, 2018; Ladson- Billings, 2003).

Storytelling gives preservice teachers a place to belong. Belonging is a sense of being home. In this brief research literature, “a sense of belonging” refers to “feeling accepted, appreciated, and understood in our relationships with individuals and groups of people” (Riley & White, 2016). In school settings, students’ sense of belonging is generally held to have an impact on achievement, self-efficacy, well-being, and intrinsic motivation (Jury et al., 2019). In this chapter, we will discuss both teacher candidates’ sense of school belonging as well as the sense of belonging to the teaching profession.