Belonging is a concept that has long been held as a solution for redressing the exclusion of diverse people. On the surface, this concept makes sense. The assumption is that if all members of a group or community feel like they belong, then the interpersonal disparities that would normally exclude a person or group will not occur.
Unfortunately, the research on belonging, particularly for the function of reducing exclusion, suggests otherwise (Flett, 2018). Likewise, belonging is not enough when it comes to camps’ efforts to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
What Is Belonging?
Belonging is defined as “the feeling of connectedness” we have with others, particularly feelings of friendship, family, and intimacy (Crawford, 2024). The research on belonging has been organized in three categories: place-based, identity-based, and interpersonal belonging. The first of these, place-based belonging, is something most camps excel at.
Place-based Belonging: Where We Belong
Place-based belonging is based on the relationships we have with a place, the way we feel when in that place, and the significance that place holds for us. Campers and staff connect meaningful camp experiences with various buildings, natural features, and nooks of camp space. Sunset bridge, whispering pines, kissing rock, the walk-in fridge, and the lake hold memories and meanings in the minds of camp participants.
Identity-based Belonging: What We Belong To
Identity-based belonging suggests that we connect with people who share similar elements of identity (e.g., demographic characteristics, temperaments, attitudes, values, experiences, and personal interests) and how we signal these things (Crawford, 2024). Camp shirts, impromptu camp songs, water bottle stickers, and friendship bracelets can all signal to other camp folk the possibility of shared values, sense of humor, and work ethic, among others. By producing camp merchandise and crafts, camps ace signaling identity-based belonging. Camp experiences, whether a specific one (in time and space) or as a generalized imagining, tend to elicit a recognition of camp folk to camp folk — and easily generate identity-based belonging.
Interpersonal Belonging: To Whom We Belong
At the heart of belonging is the understanding that “for people to belong, they need a small number of high-quality relationships” (Crawford, 2024). That is, we all need relationships that are characterized by respect, care, consistency (over time and space), reliability, and regular communication. The social connectedness of these relationships is what it means to experience interpersonal belonging — a bit trickier for camps, because the seasonality and short participant stays make it difficult to achieve the consistency criteria. Camps try to address this by hosting off-season events, distributing regular newsletters, fostering online communities, and maintaining the same (leadership) staff year to year. These efforts cannot, however, replace the intimacy and bond of close and regular relationships and contact. Since the interpersonal belonging construct has the most research support for its utility and effectiveness among the three belonging frameworks, camps’ inability to fully meet the belonging criteria creates some challenges.
The Problems with the Belonging Concept for DEI Efforts at Camp
The intimacy of relationships formed at camp are often accelerated (Baker, 2020). Friendships are made quickly and become meaningful at an expedited rate. This is due, in part, to the phenomena that cultural anthropologist Victor Turner calls “liminality” and that sociologist Emile Durkheim names “collective effervescence” (Olaveson, 2001). (The latter is one of my favorite descriptors of camp life; a community where we bubble together.) Camp is a place where belonging can be and is achieved quickly. Yet relying on the concept of belonging alone to redress experiences of exclusion within camp settings is problematic.
Three relevant problems exist with the assumptions about how belonging is used to address DEI at camp:
- Belonging is often “conflated with inclusion, engagement, connection, and relatedness” (Crawford, 2024). Belonging and inclusion are not the same. These concepts differ again from other related concepts like engagement, connection, and relatedness. Even when you think you have one covered, it does not mean you have the others. Multipronged efforts are necessary for DEI to be effective at camp (see Meerts, Wycoff and Sibthorp, 2024 for further discussion).
- Belonging is experienced differently by different people at different times and to different degrees. Trying to capture all the ways belonging is experienced is like trying to put oblivion in a Ziploc bag. Impossible! Belonging is experienced fluidly and, when applying it to the inclusion of diverse and marginalized people, requires respect for and sensitivity to the context in which belonging is and is not experienced.
- The criteria for measuring and/or identifying belonging at camp is often set in accordance with the values and beliefs of the dominant group.
While the belonging concept is valuable and necessary when addressing inclusion at camp, it also raises questions. Why do some people feel like they don’t belong at camp? How can we help more folks feel like they not only belong at camp but are a meaningful part of camp?
The Founding Ideals of Early Camps
The founding of summer camps was a response to particular changes at the turn of the last century in America. Industrialization, urbanization, war, and the emergence of childhood and adolescence as distinct periods of life contributed to the development of a welfare motivated to address child development (Paris, 2008). The question being posed might have been, “How can positive child development be achieved during a time of significant global change and the need for unification of a diverse immigrant nation?” One answer was summer camps. Groups like Camp Fire Girls, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides, and Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) made camps “affordable, mainstream, and national” (Paris, 2008). These groups, among others, saw camp as an opportunity to promote “virtuous American citizenship” to reform immigrant and domestic children alike (Paris, 2008).
The foundational ideals of camps included pastoral care provision; wholesome, nature-based settings; and positive character development for children and youth (Paris, 2008). These objectives largely remain at the heart of camp and camp-like experiences today (Baker, 2020). However, the ideals, routines, and structures of early summer camps reflected that of the dominant groups that founded them (Paris, 2008). That is, summer camps reflect the ideals of white, heterosexual, able-bodied masculinity (Gray & Mitten, 2018; Baker, Carr, & Stewart, 2021). Consequently, the early foundations of camp were exclusionary. Unfortunately, many of the systems and assumptions that underpin camp practices haven’t changed much since their inception, despite the drastic societal changes since (Gray & Mitten, 2018). Today’s camp professionals are both well positioned and ethically compelled to peel back and radically “undo” the foundational discourses and practices that exclude, harm, and oppress.
Oppression: How It “Plays” at Camp
Many hurts have been caused by the assumption that the way one person, or group, sees the world is not only the right way, but the only way. Globally, we are experiencing both acceptance of plurality and resistance, including extremist responses, to the multiplicity and diversity of world views, approaches, and practices. The United States is no stranger to navigating through social, political, and geographical differences and tensions. Yet, when one group/population dominates the decision-making, access to resources, goods and services, and opportunities for advancement, then they are likely to structure the rules, mechanisms, and systems in their favor. Or, at least, in ways that make the most sense to them and that are dependent on their way of thinking. This is often done exclusively, even when representatives from marginalized groups are consulted (Ahmed, 2016). This is how systems of oppression work and, for this discussion, play at camp. That is, when the dominant group “owns” access to opportunities, decision-making, and resources, then they can shape the systems and structures in ways that provide them, and only them, advantage and privilege. Systemic oppression is the (re)production of processes and thinking that serve the dominant group and excludes, limits, and/or erases others, by the very same mechanisms, from gaining access and opportunity. Consequently, systemic and structural oppression is hard (but not impossible) to change.
The same assumptions that are inherent to the foundation of camp (i.e., whiteness, heterosexuality, able-bodiedness, and masculinity) continue to function in ways that limit and exclude participation of diverse children, youth, and adults in camps today. Much camp-related literature demonstrates the prevalence and exclusionary nature of camps (see Baker & Hannant-Minchel, 2022; Browne, Gillard, & Garst, 2019; Harvey, Seo, & Logan, 2022; Cousineau & Roth, 2012; Rose & Paisley, 2012).
Consider this: arduous physical challenges that strain the body and push the mind to breaking, or the edges of comfort, are often revered at camp. Remote canoe trips, high ropes challenges, and Olympic-style games are all examples of activities that are celebrated and take up significant space in camp folklore, dining hall wall recognitions, and award ceremonies. The prioritization of these feats is founded on notions of masculine physicality and can be traced back to early camp discourses of muscular Christian (i.e., YMCA and Boy Scouts) where physical labor was assumed to lead to the purification of the soul (Paris, 2008). Activities that are traditionally associated with femininity — like crafts, domestic tasks, and social connectedness — are not given the same space or reverence in many camp environments. Because masculine-associated achievements are set as the baseline of all achievements at camp, the gendering of achievement becomes obscured. Add 150 or so years of camp and societal change, and the patriarchal hegemony of camp activities can be hard to spot — especially when people of all genders engage in their reproduction uncritically. This is, unfortunately, an example of how oppression continues to play in camps. While this example focuses on binary assumptions of gender, there are examples for every aspect of exclusion, injustice, and oppression (i.e., race/ethnicity, able-bodiedness, sexual orientation, religious practice, age, body shape, nonbinary gender identification, etc.).
Camps Are Well Positioned to Do DEI, and Not Just for Campers
It can be discomforting to reflect on the ways that something we love, like camp, may have hurt people — and not just strangers but the people we care about. However, our willingness to dialogue about and within this discomfort signals our maturity as a profession and as a cultural institution. Rather than demoralize, this wander down camp’s memory lane is to (re)surface the ways that the foundational aims of the summer camp movement at the turn of the last century created systemic and structural aspects of exclusion and injustice. Consequently, camp folks, from decision-makers to frontline staff, can better target their efforts to make camps inclusive and just.
The power of camp experiences cannot be underestimated. Heaps of evidence attest that camp experiences support positive benefits and are transformative for all participants, campers and staff alike. Consequently, camps are well positioned to shape the social fabric of America in how diversity, equity, and inclusion can be envisioned and enacted. Given their ability to develop ideal community environments where the social objectives of inclusion and belonging are intentionally set and pursued, camps can significantly influence how the nation’s social fabric with regard to DEI is knitted together.
Mattering: Being Seen and Valued
There are precious moments in life when we recognize that we matter to the people who matter to us. A homemade gift given and received, a burst of laughter in response to a joke or antic, a warm embrace at journey’s end — this is what mattering is about. Mattering is described as when “you know that you are valued and that you count in the world” (Flett, 2018). Like Crawford’s (2024) notion of “connection anchors,” who are people who facilitate interpersonal belonging, we only need to matter to a few important people who matter to us for it to have health promotion and protective value in our lives (Flett, 2018).
Flett (2018) explains that the development of the mattering concept was in tandem with the concept of self-esteem, but it is the latter that has been propelled into popular discourse and has enjoyed much research exploration. However, mattering was always proposed to be a partner to understanding and supporting mental, social, and emotional well-being. As Flett (2018) states in his book, The Psychology of Mattering, “Mattering is essential to well-being and, unfortunately, it has been largely neglected by the academic community.” Yet, the research on mattering that has been done shows that it matters — a lot.
Where belonging tends to focus on individual experiences, mattering is helpful in capturing the complexity of social interactions and their impact on how we see ourselves. For the purposes of camp, this approach to DEI illuminates the benefits of mattering within the social fabric of camps: “At a collective level, people who feel as though they matter and that this is appreciated by other people will be an energized and engaged group of people who are capable of offering many things to their communities” (Flett, 2018).
Whether a camper connects with just one counselor, a cabin gels over a challenging or fun activity, or a counselor-in-training bonds with the assistant cook over shared music interests, being seen and valued supports efforts to include diverse people in a camp’s social fabric and function. Mattering is a social concept that captures “the powerful impact that other people have on us, and it reflects our need to be valued by the people in our lives” (Flett, 2018).
A Few Things to Know about Mattering
No one likes to feel or “be made to feel as if they are invisible or insignificant” (Flett, 2018). Flett goes on to describe how not mattering, or “anti-mattering,” is harmful and can cause “abject feelings of psychological pain” for individuals. Consequently, mattering should be understood as being “double-edged” (Flett, 2018). Tokenistic, ignorant, or disingenuous gestures of mattering can do more harm than good. Camp’s efforts to ensure camp community members feel that they matter must be authentic and would benefit from being intentional and reflexive.
Mattering is experienced in a relatively stable way, but it can fluctuate in the face of social interactions within a given environment. A person might have a solid sense of mattering within their family unit but be hesitant or anxious in a new camp environment. Like the belonging concept, it is important for camp leaders and decision-makers to remember that mattering and belonging during camp is different from mattering to camp. That is, individuals’ sense of mattering at camp should not be to the exclusion of mattering in other spheres of the campers’ or staff members’ lives beyond camp. The social isolation of camp is part of how camps can generate such tightknit communities; however, the relationships in which individuals matter outside of camp are important protective and promotion factors for their overall well-being. Thus, ensuring that campers and staff get emails and messages from home and can reply, in a timely manner, is important to maintaining a sense of mattering on a global level. In turn, this helps with resilience within camp and transitions from camp back home.
Mattering: A Way Forward for DEI and Well-being at Camps
Mattering is complex, distinct from other concepts (i.e., belonging), and is significant to whether an individual feels genuinely included at camp. Mattering doesn’t mean that campers and staff must make loads of friends at camp or that they have to belong to the whole of camp culture, rather that campers and staff will thrive by being valued by a few key people in the camp environment. Mattering supports the inclusion of diversity at camps by valuing the unique contribution of every member and, with intentionality, valuing individuals on their own merits rather than (white, heterosexual, gender binary, able-bodied, and masculine) assumed criteria that limits and excludes. My hope is that the mattering concept equips camp leaders with a fresh and proven approach to deliver camp objectives within an inclusive social environment.
Camps already practice, promote, and deliver opportunities for mattering in so many ways. Here is a short brainstorm of “camp things” that align with an approach to mattering:
- Learning and using individuals’ names
- Playing games where speaking, sharing, and listening is taken in turns
- Giving warm fuzzies where individuals receive personal praise and encouragement
- Organizing interpersonal connection via one-on-one relationships and small groups (like cabins)
- Allocating staff buddies and mentors among staff
- Providing “connection anchors” that are designated with pastoral care responsibilities among staff (like group leaders, well-being staff, and directors)
- Leadership role modeling gratefulness and expressing thanks for the “unseen” and undervalued work of camps (i.e., kitchen, administration, and maintenance)
- Camp leadership providing and safeguarding staffs’ rest and time off
- Offering shared experiences among campers and small groups whether active or quiet, big or small
- Giving every community member a personalized award. One that “sees” and appreciates each individual for who they are (and not using generic wording or themes)
- Keeping up correspondence and regular out-of-season communication
- Maintaining alumni affiliation and recognition
Much work is yet to be done in dismantling camp systems and discourse that oppress and exclude many. I encourage you to explore research, like that of Meerts, Wycoff, and Sibthorp (2024), to gain more practical and thoughtful insights about how to do this for camps. (It’s free.) Additionally, I encourage you to consider mattering as a philosophical approach to bringing DEI practices to life.
Mattering can really happen anywhere and anytime, in big or small moments. It only takes one or two people to recognize the specialness and value of a camp member for that member to be more engaged, resilient, and well. Equally, the knowledge of being valued, even by people outside of camp, promotes and protects a participant’s health and well-being. In a social time of division, particularly along lines of race, religion, and sexual and gender identification in America, establishing and maintaining cultures of mattering at camp offers a way for engagement in justice work and change for the social fabric of the nation. Perhaps the experience and memory of mattering at camp can generate the momentum to make DEI changes more broadly. Mattering at camp matters.
Photo courtesy of MedCamps of Louisiana, West Monroe, LA.
Mandi Baker, PhD, runs Lamped Research and is a passionate researcher and lecturer with a special interest in the emotional demands, people skills, and networks of power-involved, people-centric service work. She explores these concepts in organized outdoor experiences, youth and community development, recreation, and leisure contexts. She uses sociological concepts to explore everyday work experiences and to offer fresh insights to ethical and just employment, leadership, and education. Mandi is a university professor and serves on the American Camp Association’s Research and Evaluation Council, among other duties.
References
Ahmed, S. (2016). How not to do things with words. Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies, 16, 1-10.
Baker, M. (2020). Becoming and being a camp counsellor: Discourse, power relations and emotions. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Baker, M., Carr, N., & Stewart, E. J. (Eds.). (2021). Leisure activities in the outdoors: Learning, developing and challenging. CABI.
Baker, M., & Hannant-Minchel, J. (2022). “Both are equal, which is awesome”: exploring gendered discourses of Canadian summer camp experiences. Annals of Leisure Research, 25(3), 417-434.
Browne, L. P., Gillard, A., & Garst, B. A. (2019). Camp as an institution of socialization: Past, present, and future. Journal of Experiential Education, 42(1), 51-64.
Cousineau, L., & Roth, J. (2012). Pervasive patriarchal leadership ideology in seasonal residential summer camp staff. Leadership, 8(4), 421-440.
Crawford, J. (2024). Belonging During University. Accord Report — Literature review of belonging for the Department of Education, Australia. education.gov.au/australian-universities-accord/resources/literature-review-belonging
Gray, T., & Mitten, D. (Eds.). (2018). The Palgrave international handbook of women and outdoor learning. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Harvey, P., Seo, J., & Logan, E. (2022). Queer at camp: the impact of summer camps on LGBTQ campers in the United States. Gender a výzkum/Gender and Research, 22(2), 45-70.
Litwiller, F. (2018). “You can see their minds grow”: Identity development of LGBTQ youth at a residential wilderness camp. Leisure/Loisir, 42(3), 347-361.
Meerts, L., Wycoff, T., & Sibthorp, J. (2024). Benchmarking strategies used to increase diversity, equity, inclusion at summer camps. Journal of Youth Development, 19(1), 4.
Olaveson, T. (2001). Collective effervescence and communitas: Processual models of ritual and society in Emile Durkheim and Victor Turner. Dialectical Anthropology, 26, 89-124.
Paris, L. (2008). Children’s nature: The rise of the American summer camp (Vol. 5). NYU press.
