"She Saved Me a Seat Every Class ...": Undergraduate Students' Experiences of Belonging in College Courses

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session Thirteen
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Academic Spaces (Table 4)

Abstract

Feeling a sense of belonging is a fundamental human need and one of the strongest drivers of human behavior. There is a wealth of scholarship on the antecedents and outcomes of feelings of sense of belonging for college students. The majority of that research focuses on students’ sense of belonging to the college or university. There is relatively less work that examines undergraduate students’ sense of belonging in college courses. As such, the purpose of this qualitative study is to examine both students’ experiences that enhance feelings of belonging and experiences that damage feelings of belonging in college courses. With data from interviews with 76 undergraduate students we found common themes related to students’ experience and describe our results below.

Authors

• Peter Bjorklund, University of California - San Diego
  Presenting Author

• Sushil Shintre, University of California - San Diego
  Non-Presenting Author