When High Achievements Meet Low Belonging: Reflections from Jamaica

From Jamaica to Your Inbox: Youth Empowerment Insights

I'm writing this from a completely different headspace than my last newsletter. While Newsletter #3 emerged from my reflections on co-creating education in Singapore, this one comes from something much more personal, and honestly, more heartbreaking.

I just returned from Jamaica, where I spent time with 40 incredible Black Ivy League graduates. Picture this: Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia alumni, people who, by every conventional measure, had "made it" in higher education. But as we sat together, sharing stories late into the evening, what struck me wasn't their achievements. It was the pain that still lived in their voices when they talked about their university experiences.

|| The Paradox I Couldn't Shake

Here were some of the most academically successful people I know, and yet their stories were filled with moments of feeling stereotyped, undermined, and questioned at every turn. One woman described constantly having to prove she belonged in a class where she was performing well while others were underachieving. Another talked about professors who seemed surprised when he contributed insightful analysis, as if his presence was still a question mark rather than a given.

These weren't students struggling academically, these were the ones who thrived despite the environment. But what is the cost of that achievement? A persistent sense that they were visitors in spaces that weren't built for them.

It got me thinking about the younger students in our classrooms right now who might be experiencing this same disconnect between high achievement and low belonging.

|| What The Research Tells Us

This experience sent me diving back into research on belonging, particularly the work of Meehan and Howells (2019). Their five-year study of 530 students asked the questions that have been haunting me since Jamaica: What constitutes 'belonging' in higher education? What helps students feel they belong? What barriers get in the way?

Their findings hit differently now. They found that belonging isn't just an emotional experience, it's a fundamental prerequisite for academic success. But here's what I'm grappling with: what about students who achieve academically despite never truly feeling they belong?

The research shows that membership in learning communities and social groups significantly reduces feelings of isolation and fear. But what happens when you're achieving at the highest levels while simultaneously feeling like an outsider? What's the long-term cost of that disconnect?

|| The Students Who Wish They Could Learn Alone

One finding from the research particularly stayed with me: some students felt so alienated from campus life that they wished their degrees could be conducted entirely online. They would rather sacrifice all human connection than endure the pain of feeling like they don't belong.

Sitting with those graduates in Jamaica, I could see how some of them had made similar calculations during their university years, choosing isolation over the constant work of proving their place, as they found community outside their academic spaces because the ones inside felt too hostile.

|| Social Engagement as Survival, Not Luxury

Ahn and Davis (2019) found that among four domains affecting belonging, academic engagement, social engagement, surroundings, and personal space, social engagement was the most significant factor. For students from underrepresented backgrounds, this becomes even more critical.

However, I'm grappling with a different issue: when social spaces feel unwelcoming, high-achieving students often pour their energy into academic engagement as a survival strategy. They think that if they just perform well enough and prove themselves academically, belonging will follow. The graduates I met in Jamaica had done precisely that, and it worked, in some ways. They graduated, they succeeded. But the belonging part? That took years to find, and often happened outside those prestigious walls.

|| From Being to Belonging, Interrupted

Meehan and Howells describe a progression: "being, belonging, and becoming." Students must feel recognized for who they are, develop genuine connections, then fully engage with their potential. But what happens when this progression gets interrupted?

The stories I heard in Jamaica suggested a different pattern: achieving without belonging, becoming despite not being fully seen. These graduates had found ways to succeed academically while their social and emotional needs went unmet in those spaces.

|| What This Means For Young People In Our Classrooms

I keep thinking about the 16-year-old who's excelling in their GCSE classes but dreads walking into the classroom. The 14-year-old who gets straight A's but feels like they have to code-switch so dramatically that they lose themselves. The high school student who is getting into top universities while feeling completely invisible in their current school community.

We need to recognise that high achievement and low belonging can coexist, and when they do, we're setting students up for a kind of success that comes at enormous personal cost.

|| Questions I'm Sitting With

How do we create educational spaces where students don't have to choose between achieving and belonging? How do we build communities where high-performing students from diverse backgrounds feel genuinely valued, not just tolerated? And perhaps most importantly, how do we recognize when students are succeeding academically but dying socially, emotionally, spiritually?

The research is clear that belonging affects academic outcomes. But I'm also learning that academic success without belonging leaves scars that can last decades.

Read, reflect, and let me know your thoughts. This conversation feels urgent to me right now.