When 'Belonging' Replaces 'Equity': The Silence of White Male Educators

Across schools, colleges and trusts, a quiet linguistic shift has taken root. Many white male educators – often in leadership roles, often well-meaning – are talking less about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and more about belonging. At first, it sounds like progress. Who could possibly argue with belonging? It’s warm, inclusive, even healing.

But beneath that linguistic comfort lies something more complicated. When white male educators embrace “belonging” while sidestepping conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion, they risk participating in a subtle but powerful form of avoidance – one that centres comfort over accountability, and cohesion over justice.

The Appeal of ‘Belonging’

There’s no denying the emotional resonance of belonging. Everyone wants to feel seen, valued, and part of a community. The word signals care and connection – qualities deeply needed in our schools.

Yet belonging, in its current popular use, carries a kind of neutrality that makes it especially attractive to those uncomfortable with conversations about race, power, and privilege. It sounds universal and non-political. It doesn’t demand that we ask who has been excluded, whose histories have been erased, or whose comfort is prioritized.

For many white male educators, “belonging” feels like safer ground. It lets them express empathy without stepping into the uneasy territory of systemic inequity. It invites community-building without requiring structural change.

But that safety is precisely the problem.

What Gets Lost When We Skip DEI

Belonging, when untethered from the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion, risks becoming a hollow promise. It shifts the focus from systems to feelings – from justice to comfort.

• Diversity asks: Who is here? Who is missing? 
• Equity asks: Who has access to opportunity and resources? Who are the gatekeepers? 
• Inclusion asks: Whose voices shape our culture and decisions? Who is being silenced? 
• Belonging, in its best form, should ask: How do we ensure everyone feels valued within equitable systems? 

But too often, belonging is invoked instead of those questions, not because of them. It becomes a way to soothe rather than to solve – a way to look caring without confronting the root causes of exclusion.

In that sense, “belonging” can function as the linguistic comfort food of educational leadership: it fills us up emotionally but leaves the deeper hunger for justice untouched. In other words, it is a plaster on a problem, the problem just becomes hidden.

The Silence of Power

Language choices are never neutral, especially when made by those in positions of authority. White male educators still hold disproportionate power in most educational spaces – whether as principals, governors, professors, or thought leaders. Their voices shape what counts as acceptable discourse.

When those voices go quiet around diversity, equity, and inclusion, the silence speaks volumes. It signals to colleagues and students that DEI is passé, divisive, or optional. It allows institutions to drift away from equity work under the comforting banner of belonging.

And when belonging becomes the new vocabulary of leadership, it risks recentring white male experience – transforming a call for justice into a call for harmony, where discomfort is avoided rather than embraced as part of growth.

This silence doesn’t just maintain the status quo; it legitimises it. It says, “We care, but not enough to change.”

The Cost of Comfort

The consequences of this linguistic shift are real.

• DEI initiatives lose funding or visibility because “we’re focusing on belonging now.” 
• Educators of colour are asked to “bring everyone together” instead of naming inequity. 
• Students from marginalised backgrounds hear that they “belong,” but still experience microaggressions, biased pedagogy, and uneven discipline. 

The rhetoric of belonging, when detached from diversity and equity, offers inclusion without transformation. It becomes a story we tell ourselves about progress, even as the systems of inequity remain intact.

True belonging is not created through slogans, surveys, or drop down days. It grows when power is redistributed, voices long ignored are amplified, and systems are redesigned to ensure fairness. Without that foundation, belonging is little more than an emotional gloss over structural inequity (or some pretty icing on some stale cake).

A Call Back to Courage

None of this is to say that belonging doesn’t matter. It matters deeply. But belonging must be built on top of equity, not in place of it.

White male educators, in particular, have a responsibility to stay in the discomfort – to speak not just about togetherness, but about justice. Silence is not neutrality; it is complicity. And shifting the language without shifting the practice is not progress – it’s retreat.

Belonging that is worth having will always be born from honesty, from the willingness to look directly at inequity and to act against it. It requires courage, humility, and a refusal to choose comfort over truth.

A Final Thought

If we are serious about belonging, then we must be serious about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Because real belonging does not come from soft language – it comes from hard work.

Belonging without equity is not inclusion.
It’s avoidance dressed as empathy.

The challenge for white male educators – and indeed, for all of us – is to ensure that our words do not outpace our courage. 

Thus, we must become more conscious of who we are when we are doing DEIB work, we must be confident we are tackling problems and not causing further harm, we must be competent in navigating each layer of our workplace culture as belonging is only surfaced when diversity, equity and inclusion are established and embedded in the foundations.