Sense of belonging refers to the extent a student feels included accepted valued and supported on their campus. The developmental process of belonging is interwoven with the social identity development of diverse college students. Moreover belonging is influenced by the campus environment relationships and involvement opportunities as well as a need to master the student role and achieve academic success. Although the construct of sense of belonging is complex and multilayered a consistent theme across the chapters in this book is that the relationship between sense of belonging and intersectionality of identity cannot be ignored and must be integrated into any approach to fostering belonging. Over the last 10 years colleges and universities have started grappling with the notion that their approaches to maintaining and increasing student retention persistence and graduation rates were no longer working. As focus shifted to uncovering barriers to student success while concurrently recognizing student success as more than solely academic factors the term “student sense of belonging” gained traction in both academic and co-curricular settings. The editors noticed the lack of a consistent definition or an overarching theoretical approach as well as a struggle to connect disparate research. A compendium of research applications and approaches to sense of belonging did not exist so they brought this book into being to serve as a single point of reference in an emerging and promising field of study. |The Impact of a Sense of Belonging in College Implications for Student Persistence Retention and Success | Education
