Abstract
The desire to belong has been conceptualized by motivational psychologists as a fundamental human motive (need to belong), which means that it can guide thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Indeed, a growing literature has documented that students who perceive a sense of belonging in school generally fare well—academically, socially, and emotionally. In this article, we bring the racial/ethnic context to the study of school belonging. We review a number of studies from our program of research—both cross-sectional and longitudinal—that describe how feelings of belonging are shaped by important racial/ethnic context variables such as the size of one’s racial/ethnic group in school across critical school transitions, perceived representation of one’s group in critical STEM courses (e.g., 9th-grade math), and how the differences between school-level and course-level representation affect both schools belonging and academic achievement. We make an argument for studying racial/ethnic diversity as a fluid and dynamic construct that impacts motivation and achievement in previously understudied ways.
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Graham, S., Kogachi, K. & Morales-Chicas, J. Do I Fit In: Race/Ethnicity and Feelings of Belonging in School. Educ Psychol Rev 34, 2015–2042 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-022-09709-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-022-09709-x