Cultivating Historically Underserved Students' Sense of Belonging: An Exploratory Study of Cultural Humility

• In Event: 79.028 - "Supporting Low-Income Students’ College Transition: Factors Related to Sense of Belonging in the First Year"

Abstract

Despite considerable research on students’ “sense of belonging,” studies that examine specific practices institutional actors can implement to foster belongingness remain limited. In this paper, we propose “cultural humility” as one potentially useful concept for addressing this observed gap in higher education research. By cultural humility, we mean a lifelong commitment to self-critique and redressing power inequities between institutional agents and historically underserved students. We report on findings drawn from a mixed methods inquiry, which combined interviews with Educational Opportunity Programs advisers (N=10) and a student survey (N=773; response rate 12.91%). We found a significant relationship between students’ perceptions of cultural humility and their reported “sense of belonging.” We conclude by discussing implications for higher education research and practice.

Authors

• Priscilla Sung, University of California - Santa Cruz

• Ethan Chang, University of California - Santa Cruz