The Role of Background Characteristics and Sense of Belonging in First-Year Undergraduate Students’ Peer Networks

• In Event: Navigating College Networks: Engagement, Belonging, and Resource Access for Diverse Student Populations

Abstract

The development of peer networks is an important aspect of the transition to higher education. By adopting a longitudinal complete social network approach (n=247), this study investigates how students’ generation-status, migration background, and sense of belonging together affect students’ embeddedness in peer networks and segregation of these networks. Stochastic actor-oriented models show that continuing-generation students and students with a strong sense of belonging were more active with building relationships. Students with a similar migration background and sense of belongingness were more likely to connect, causing segregation in peer networks. Our findings underscore the importance of student background characteristics in friendship and help-seeking networks and provide first evidence of the role of sense of belonging in peer network formation.

Authors

• Pieter van Lamoen, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Marieke Meeuwisse, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Annemarie Hiemstra, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Lidia Arends, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Sabine Severiens, Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Jasperina Brouwer, University of Groningen