Sense of Belonging in a Graduate Readiness Program for BIPOC Students

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 1:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Investigating Outcomes and Trajectories From College to Postgraduate Opportunities (Table 22)

Abstract

Through centering Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) voices, the researchers aimed to understand student experiences through a program aimed to prepare students with underrepresented identities for graduate studies in psychology. The goal of the study was to understand the program's impact. Over the course of five years, 56 participants submitted weekly journal entries. Through qualitative data analysis, sense of belonging (SOB), sense of identity (SOI), and sense of worth (SOW) emerged as themes. Past literature emphasizes SOB but does not address how to achieve it for BIPOC students. Our findings suggest that programming targeting SOI and SOW are just as important as SOB and that social justice-oriented dialogic practices were necessary to support all three themes.

Authors

• Lee Hatcher, New York University

• Iris Mann, New York University

• Shambaleed Nayyer, Columbia University Irving Medical Center

• Jordan Morris, New York University