A Sense of Belonging - From Cynicism to Bonding

The Context

This practice guide emerges from the experience of teaching an arts foundation subject that introduced students to different ways of conceptualising the future, including utopianism, and encouraged them to recognise their agency in the context of future challenges. This was aimed at easing the students’ transition to university – both socially and in terms of assisting with their developing identity as students in an academic community. The messaging of the course met with some resistance, and some students adopted attitudes to the content that could be described as cynical – defensive, disengaged, and suspicious. The reasons for this are undoubtedly complex. But the result was that, for some educators, the learning and teaching environment became charged and fraught, and it was difficult to have productive conversations.

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Resistance and cynicism can emerge in the classroom regardless of the subject matter. This practice guide looks at how to engage productively with cynicism or resistance in the first-year classroom, and how these ways of self-positioning or critique can actually be used in the service of cohort- and community-building.

There are a range of compelling reasons for students to be cynical today, and it’s understandable that students might feel despair about being able to make a difference to the urgent problems facing the world today. It’s also important to acknowledge that cynicism is a mode of defence – in other words, it’s a response to feeling threatened. Knowing this might give educators a place from which to empathise. And perhaps cynicism is not necessarily the enemy.

Students who are cynical about the subject matter are potentially also demonstrating:

  • Critical thinking skills, given they have not immediately positioned themselves in alliance with an agreeable position
  • Intense engagement with the subject matter (even if the engagement is negative and/or superficial, there is an intensity to it!)
  • An awareness of the political, sociocultural, economic context in which they are studying the subject matter
  • A latent set of values or positions (which may or may not be contrasting) which could be drawn out.

Student cynicism towards subject matter and the class context can be opportunities:

  • To engage with students productively, and leverage their cynicism as a tool to encourage relationships between students
  • For educators to be challenged to move beyond teaching as ‘content delivery’, and towards more invitational, dialogical ways of activating the classroom material that can point towards nuance and complexity.
  • To show students that in some instances the educators, too, inhabit a position of not knowing – which can be very uncomfortable – but that they continue to enquire from this position anyway.

Recommendations

Engage students with group work

Working in a group – especially one composed of diverse perspectives and positionalities – makes it difficult to continue to be knowingly disengaged and thereby ignore complexity. Give students tools for working productively with differing positions and equip teaching staff to be a resource for supporting student group work, especially when conflict inevitably arises.

Use dialogical pedagogical methods

Work through complex positions by hearing from multiple voices. This has the effect of increasing student agency AND accountability (i.e. the balance of rights and responsibilities). As much as possible, avoid ‘authoritarian’ style teaching or a teaching style that is purely about the ‘transmission of knowledge’(Gravett & Lygo-Baker, 2025)

Encourage reflective engagement

Prioritise students’ reflective engagement with the course material, including by considering positionality – beginning by modelling it yourself. If cynicism is to become productive, students need to be able to name the problems they see, including being able to formulate criticism of the subject or the university itself.

Emphasise student wellbeing 

Position student wellbeing as a key concern within your subject – for example:

  • Spend time at the beginning of semester informing students about supports available to them,
  • Ensure students understand how to access special consideration and accommodations processes.
  • Implement proactive measures to check in with students who seem disengaged – who have multiple unexplained absences, who are not submitting assignments, who disclose to educators that they are struggling, etc
  • Understand how to refer students to support services, and also be clear about pathways to engage students with the Faculty Early Alert Program.

Work with affect in the classroom

Keep the affective environment in the classroom bright and fluid – but also helps to be open and acknowledge when it (inevitably) gets dark or tense. Using humour where appropriate, incorporating breaks or changes of topic when dealing with difficult subject matter, and switching modes between small- or large-group discussions and lecturing, can all help to refresh the space and keep everyone attentive, open, and curious.

Avoid being combative when encountering resistance

It rarely helps to be combative when encountering resistance. Leaving space for resistance in the classroom, and demonstrating understanding and the capacity to inhabit a position of unknowing, are all more effective ways of processing student cynicism and allowing it to transform productively.

Suggested Activities

Parallel reflective activities 

Students and educators each undergo reflective activities in parallel. Near the end of semester: students are invited to reflect on a moment that has personally challenged them in the course of the subject – for example, a moment where they have strongly disagreed with something, a moment where they have switched off, a moment of conflict. There are two phases of this reflection: i) what is it about their own positionality that contributed to that situation (self)? And ii) can they also identify factors in the external environment that created the situation, beyond the self (other)? Finally, students reflect on both perspectives, self and other – what meaning do they make of any disparities in these two perspectives? What can be learnt? Educators undertake the same process, from their own perspective. Students share reflections with each other (e.g. in small groups, perhaps – not whole class); staff share reflections with each other (not with students).

Communities of practice 

Offer opportunities for relationships building in the classroom where possible, especially at the beginning of semester, to allow students to feel comfortable, supported, and develop the capacity to form relationships of allyship with peers. Students could be invited to form a ‘community of practice’ by setting up a class chat (without the educator). Define this term for students: the aim of a community of practice is to deepen learning and understanding about a particular topic, through conversation and interaction. Ask students to develop some clear, agreed-upon guidelines for engagement, and know when to escalate to the educator if needed. The idea is that this will enable frank discussions of matters related to the subject, without the inhibiting presence of the educator.

Democratise classroom processes 

Invite participation and buy-in from students, where possible – at the beginning of the semester, for example, educators could use PollEverywhere to ask students to nominate their preferences around the classroom set-up, such as whether they would prefer to have a break in the class/seminar, and at what point. Make sure to actually follow through and implement measures where possible – otherwise, be prepared to explain why you couldn’t.

References

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