Student Transition, Sense of Belonging and Habitus

This chapter focuses upon students’ experiences of law school during a period of online remote learning necessitated by COVID-19. It considers the results of a survey conducted at the University of Sheffield School of Law which explored students’ sense of belonging, engagement and self-confidence. The chapter uses Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus to theorise these results. It argues that the disruption to the habitus caused by the global pandemic provides opportunities to develop new understandings and challenge potentially harmful norms that existed in the habitus of the pre-pandemic law school. This allows for a longer-term, sustainable transition to a post-pandemic law school that engages with belonging and associated concepts in a way which enhances law student wellbeing.