There seems to be a connection between “sense of belonging” and adopting the dominant culture in academia but I need to explore it more. It may be the same concept, but the former has a more marketing and student success perspective whereas the latter has a more critical pedagogy, sociology, and Bourdieuan perspective.
Success in conventional classrooms is synonymous with adopting a white racial habitus
- Conventional assessment ecologies value habitus more than learning
- Students who do not have access to a white racial habitus will not easily understand its rules
- Students who have or are adjacent to privilege may not notice the struggle of adopting a white language habitus that other students do
- Students who were not raised in white habitus households struggle to adopt habits of white language in college
- Success in conventional classrooms is synonymous with adopting a white racial habitus
- Habitus is a system of cultural values, mores, norms, and language shared by a group of people.
- Being white is not the same as having a white racial habitus.
- School assessments tend to be designed to measure learning of the dominant majority
- Organize notes on habitus.
Academic success of linguistic minority students depends on positive relationships with classmates and instructors.12 Students who are better represented on campus, have positive peer relationships, and supportive relationships with faculty and staff are more likely to succeed in college.
@2009hausmann_sense has a literature review on the concept of “sense of belonging” in models of student success.
@2011walton&cohen_brief3 found that growth-mindset challenge re-framing exercises led to an increase in students’ sense of belonging and had significant effects on GPAs among other positive outcomes. This increase was stronger for African American students than for European American students, thus equalizing a well known racial achievement gap. @2009hausmann_sense found that more superficial interventions such as giving out school-branded swag as well as sending mass messages and surveys increased sense of belonging for European American students but not others, suggesting that student-centered efforts at inclusivity are more effective. These studies did not include students for whom English was not their first language; either resident immigrant students or international students.
For linguistic minority students, deeper work on cultural adaptation and identity may be more helpful. [@2010kanno&varghese_immigrant] noted a study that found students who were better represented on campus were more successful.4 In these cases, the institution framed the linguistic minority student presence on campus as an asset to combat dominant deficit-based narratives; thereby advocating for students when they lacked the confidence or linguistic ability to do so. Examples of this could be the CCCC statements on plurilingualism, see also ^4cf719, ^acc265. On cross-cultural composition, see @2021shapiro_language.
^91eb91 ^634ed1 ^472ff8 See also ^a6f1f0, ^ed1c06 On “identity work”, see ^909e58 ^80bf3d I did a search on “identity” in my vault, and there’s a lot to organize here. I’ll keep working on that.
Costino and Hyon (2007)5 found that students noted feeling more comfortable in classes where they could be with co-ethnnolinguistic peers. This could be increasing their sense of belonging but also at the risk of segregating courses. This can be done with surveys or conversations with students.
Teachers should explore the linguistic and cultural communities that students are a part of. ^70367c ^6b8014 ^0fcfbf ^5dd774
Recent scholars have highlighted Success in conventional classrooms is synonymous with adopting a white racial habitus @2022inoue_labor, which is another way of framing the lack of a sense of belonging; but specifically due to cultural differences. In this sense, it has effects both on the mental health and affect of the student, but also on issues not typically seen as being mediated by cultural values such as cheating, plagiarism, and relying on assistance from faculty @2017bista_academic
- Students with diverse cultural backgrounds often do not feel that copying or cheating is a problem
- Many students with diverse cultural backgrounds have strongly held cultural attitudes towards education and learning that may be difficult to change
- There can be a strong cultural preference for students engaging in counter-productive collaborative work
- There can be a strong cultural preference for students engaging in counter-productive collaborative work
- Use a variety of teaching techniques to accommodate diverse cultural backgrounds