College Students' Sense of Belonging: The Case for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders

• In Event: Sense of Belonging Across Higher Education

Abstract

Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPIs) are one of the most misunderstood student groups in the realm of higher education due to their conflation with Asian Americans and the fact they are often invisible regarding policy considerations and the development of campus services (Teranishi et al., 2019). Moreover, the erasure of NHPIs from higher education discourse has impacted if and how institutions adequately serve this ever-growing population. This study uses data from the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA to examine the factors that impact NHPI students’ sense of belonging. Given the positive relationship between sense of belonging and intent to persist (Hausmann et al., 2017), this study illuminates campus conditions that should be considered to bolster NHPI student success.

Author

• Demeturie Toso-Lafaele Gogue, University of California - Los Angeles