Essentialism is the intuition that category membership relies on an invisible essence. Essentialist thinking about social categories is most evident in young children, while comparable methods do not reveal essentialist thinking about social groups in adult participants. However, previous work has found that essentialist thinking about gender was…

This article offers a rethinking of a fundamental area of higher education research and practice: the concept of belonging. Extending the considerable international research attending to belonging, we suggest that normative narratives often contain a number of omissions. Such omissions include a consideration of the experiences of those students…

Sharing personal information can help instructors build relationships with students, and instructors revealing concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs) may be particularly impactful. One CSI is the LGBTQ+ identity, but there has been no research on the student-perceived impact of an instructor revealing this identity. In this exploratory study…

Understanding student experiences and the ability to predict satisfaction and retention continues to be an important topic in higher education. Among the many variables that have predictive capacity, recent research shows that a sense of belonging may be an important factor. The present study extends this logic to examine if a sense of community…

Games technologies have been used within education and industry for many years to improve retention, engagement, and motivation. The present research explores the use of Mobile Learning (ML) and Massively Multiplayer Online game to strengthen the group perspective of teams, improve retention, and other health-related issues. Through using Pokémon…

Background: There has been a dearth of research on intersectional identities in STEM, including the fields of computing and engineering. In computing education research, much work has been done on broadening participation, but there has been little investigation into how the field of computer science (CS) presents opportunities for students with…

The present paper analyses 70 retrospective narratives from young adults about their school life. It looks for answers to the questions of what people and situations young adults recall as sources of positive or negative feelings and how they (re)construct the impacts of school experiences on their lives as young adults. The analysis found that on…

Student motivational beliefs in introductory physics courses can influence their course outcomes as well as their retention in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines and future career aspirations. Prior research has shown that students' perceived recognition by others as a physics person is important in predicting their…

This study uses cultural capital theory as an analytical frame to investigate first-generation students' sense of belonging at university. The purpose of this study was to examine first-year students' perceptions of their sense of belonging by exploring the extent that they perceive a sense of belonging, whether they perceive barriers to their…

The higher education participation and success rates of students in low socio-economic status (SES), regional, rural, remote, and isolated areas -- who often attend university later in life -- is a persistent concern in Australia and beyond. This article focuses on mature-aged students in low SES, regional and remote areas in Tasmania, Australia,…

This study is part of larger South African project funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training and EU which focused on how practitioners listen to young children in early childhood care and education to encourage a sense of belonging and participation. The study was conducted at two early childhood care and education centres, one…

The present study examined the degree to which a large group of incoming college students (N = 2,290) had experienced economic constraints and marginalization across their lifetimes, before starting college. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was used to identify groups of students whose lifetime experiences differed based on economic constraints and…

Despite a strong body of evidence demonstrating the importance of school belonging across multiple measures of wellbeing and academic outcomes, many students still do not feel a sense of belonging to their school. Moreover, school closures caused by COVID-19 lockdowns have exacerbated challenges for developing a student's sense of school…

Care experienced and estranged students encounter profound material inequalities throughout their higher education journeys which demand our attention. However, cultural discriminations also pose problems. Both operate as social injustices which preclude them from being included, valued or seen as 'ideal' students, contributing towards inequitable…

The Texas Student Success Program Inventory (SSPI), available at https://www.highered.texas.gov/sspi, is an online database of information related to student success programs at public colleges and universities, commissioned by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). Consistent with nearly every other state, prior to the creation of…