Belonging is a basic human need. At school, this means feeling accepted, valued and cared for by teachers and peers. When this sense of belonging is missing, students feel lonely and excluded. Inclusive education is known to benefit all students, but children with disability in mainstream schools still face exclusion, bullying, discrimination and poor support. This harms them and their families, who often feel invalidated and overwhelmed by constantly having to fight the system.

Existing research and consultations with young people with disability show that a sense of belonging is central to genuine inclusion yet is often overlooked. Many young people report never feeling they belonged at school and say that belonging can be harder to achieve due to a heavy burden of self-advocacy and persistent feelings of exclusion.

In Australia, most students with disability attend mainstream schools, stressing the urgent need for more inclusive schools. This project seeks to understand how students with disability experience belonging, and what helps or hinders it, to drive systemic change.

This project is funded by Melbourne Disability Institute and led by Dr Nicole Merrick and Dr Kelly Day from Healthy Trajectories and the Learning Environments Applied Research Network (LEaRN).