This article is part of a longitudinal study on academic sense of belonging (SB) in engineering, which uses narrative analysis to examine development of meaning-making systems (MMS). Featuring narratives of three students of color, findings show that over time, some students experienced subject-object shifts in their perceptions of SB, as well as…

Early college high schools (ECHSs), which combine high school with the first two years of college, have grown in popularity nationwide. Research suggests ECHS participation has positive impacts on college enrollment and completion, but little is known about how ECHS graduates experience university life. Using a framework of college belonging and…

Heightened awareness and attention to campus diversity and racial climates are evident in higher education by increased student activism and social movements in reaction to perceptions of adverse and unwelcoming campus environments (Biemiller, 2018; Whitford, 2019). There is growing attention to how students perceive belonging and mattering on…

During the Spring 2020 semester, college campuses across the US closed to most in-person activities as the COVID-19 pandemic began, forcing students to complete the remainder of their semesters online and away from campus. These changes disrupted students' opportunities to engage in the social aspects of the college experience and potentially…

Research has indicated that, in comparison to their counterparts at predominantly White institutions (PWIs), Latinx students at Hispanic-Serving institutions (HSIs) tend to encounter less racism and, in turn, fewer challenges in shaping their ethnic identity development. Yet, evidence has also suggested that the disciplines, and by extension, the…

Impostor syndrome--feeling like a fraud who does not belong--is commonly reported by postsecondary students. Using a cross-sectional survey, we found that heightened imposturous feelings were reported by students of subjectively lower socioeconomic status (SES), and that this association was explained by lower university engagement. Further, if a…

This study was conducted with first-generation students (FGS) at a moderately selective, large public research university in the Midwest. At the time of this study, the participating campus enrolled about 43,700 undergraduates, approximately 11% of whom were FGS. To conduct this study, the authors administered a campus environments survey to all…

A significant body of research on student retention reflects that social and environmental factors influence continued enrollment in postsecondary education and academic success. Yet, for students with disabilities, more emphasis is placed on accommodations, access, and support services without sufficient attention to the social aspect of the…

Over the past two decades, Trinidad and Tobago has promoted explosive expansion of tertiary education. As with many growing postsecondary education systems, this increase in tertiary enrollment has led to the development of student support services (Haddad & Altbach, 2009). The field of student services is growing throughout the Caribbean…

Educators, policymakers, and institutions have worked for decades to increase rates of college graduation, but about half of students who enter college drop out without completing a bachelor's degree. Although the rate of student attrition is higher in the United States than in any other industrialized nation, about 30% of U.S. students will drop…

We examined student engagement with respect to gender, race, and finance at 1 South African university using a culturally relevant conceptual framework. Data for 2,569 students were collected via a survey covering demographics, cocurricular involvement, and learning outcomes. Findings include differences in sense of connection, pride, and…

We examined differences in and relationship of psychological (collective self-esteem), social (cohesion and university belonging), and cultural (cultural congruity) dimensions of university mattering for 141 Latin@ undergraduates. Collectively the dimensions accounted for 50% of the variance, with the psychological dimension having the largest…

In this study we examined the role that high-impact practices play in shaping first-year students' sense of belonging as it relates to peers and institutional acceptance. We used data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (N = 9,371), and results revealed troublesome gaps for historically underrepresented populations in their sense of…

Sense of belonging is recognized as a factor contributing to persistence to graduation. Furthermore, interactional diversity is associated with learning and civic outcomes--touted higher education goals. Hip-hop culture, one of the most influential cultural creations of the mid-20th century, has succeeded in attracting devotees from diverse…

In this study, the Tinto model of student integration is applied qualitatively to soldiers attending college. The authors found that soldiers commit to the military primarily and to college secondarily; therefore, military policies and relationships related to college offered a better understanding of college commitments than did college policies…