Belonging@UU – Diversity and inclusion beyond the numbers
A culture where everyone belongs, is valued and has the opportunity to develop through open, equal and inspiring education is recognized in the UU Strategic Plan 2020-2025. This UU-wide project contributes to diversity an inclusion goals of Utrecht University by (1) creating an interactive dashboard which presents – based on the Belonging@UU survey – levels of students’ sense of belonging both for the entire university and per faculty and (2) by designing practical tools and interventions to empower students or (3) that can be used by lecturers and programmes to foster students’ sense of belonging.
Background
Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht have committed to become more diverse and inclusive organisations. Therefore, important projects such as Diversity, Intake and Selection of Leoniek Wijngaards and Developing an Inclusive Curriculum of Jeroen Janssen have been initiated, bringing important steps towards diverse and inclusive education. However, several studies indicate that actions beyond the numbers and curriculum are also required to foster students’ sense of belonging. Therefore, this project on diversity and inclusion will add to previous projects and will go beyond the numbers and curriculum and will focus on the sense of belonging of students at Utrecht University.
In focus group meetings with students of UU, minority students report that their educational experience impacts their sense of belonging (publication in preparation). Interaction with both teachers and students is shown to be important for students’ sense of belonging (Freeman, 2007; Meeuwisse, 2010). This entails fostering students’ belonging within the classroom, in which interactions with fellow students and teachers are a main factor, as well as their sense of belonging to the university, which are inextricably linked.
Goal, set-up and intended results
The aim of this project is to gain insight in the sense of belonging of all our students and to work on an inclusive learning environment to foster our students’ sense of belonging at Utrecht University. For this, a dashboard has been set up for anyone involved with Utrecht University (see QR down below).
This project consists of 5 separate work packages (WP), which are described below:
This work package (WP) will build on current research investigating students’ sense of belonging at UU. In collaboration with Leoniek Wijngaards from Social Sciences and Marieke van der Schaaf from UMCU we developed a Belonging@UU survey. The results allows us to gain insights in the student’s sense of belonging at UU and the possible effect on their study results. This survey also provides faculty specific information that helps us to tailor the different work packages to the different faculties. The dashboard with the results of the Belonging@UU survery is now online. We aimed to make scientific insights about the sense of belonging at Utrecht University accessible to everyone.
The purpose of this WP is to develop an empowerment programme to prepare students for student life and to start their education as best prepared as possible. This empowerment programme will focus on barriers and challenges that come with the transition from high school to university, including understanding academic expectations and building social capital. This programme will be open for all students who can benefit from extra support and aims at nurturing a sense of belonging and authenticity; fostering early engagement.
This intervention aims to help first-year students appreciate belonging as a process over time. We aim to make first-year students aware that challenges are normal and to be expected in the transition to higher education. The idea is that they see belonging as a process, rather than a quality a person simply has or lacks (growth-mindset). The goal of this intervention is to change social norms and student perception by presenting challenges and feelings of non-belonging as normal and transient, and not unique to themselves or a specific minority group. For this purpose, we are developing a reflection assignment with a video on the sense of belonging of senior students that can, for example, be used in tutor groups or the above-mentioned empowerment programme.
Academic caring pedagogy supports the holistic learning and teaching needs of students in higher education. Pedagogical caring refers to a teacher’s communicated caring about a student’s learning (Wentzel, 1997) and likely mediates between class- and university-level sense of belonging. Based on our experience during the many bias trainings provided at UMC Utrecht (over 300 educators), teachers are willing to communicate pedagogical caring at the class level. However, many of the teachers are not able or do not feel competent enough to do that. This WP aims to support teachers in talking about the sense of belonging of students based on pedagogical caring at the class and Faculty levels. For this purpose, we are developing an infosheet that will be distributed in 2024.
The purpose of this WP is to create (further) supportive academic
classrooms at Utrecht University. Research shows that a supportive classroom climate can help students develop a sense of belonging in class, which is associated with greater motivation and academic achievement (Freeman et al., 2007). Both teacher-student interactions and student-student interactions contribute to the classroom climate. Using language that signals an identity-safe environment can help. Therefore, this work package aims to introduce teachers to the theories behind supportive academic classrooms, by giving them tools to create supportive academic classrooms.
References
- Freeman, T. M., Anderman, L. H., & Jensen, J. M. (2007). Sense of belonging in college freshmen at the classroom and campus levels. The Journal of Experimental Education, 75(3), 203-220.
- Meeuwisse, M., Severiens, S. E., & Born, M. P. (2010). Learning environment, interaction, sense of belonging and study success in ethnically diverse student groups. Research in Higher Education, 51(6), 528-545.
- Wentzel, K. R. (1997). Student motivation in middle school: The role of perceived pedagogical caring. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89(3), 411-419.
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