College success tied to fitting in: Do I belong here?
First-year college students with a sense of belonging—both in their classes and on campus—are more likely to build strong social networks and promote academic success.
This article was originally published by Michigan News.
A University of Michigan study finds that a student’s sense of inclusion is a primary engine for social adjustment. When students feel they truly belong, they forge deeper social bonds with peers and roommates—connections that act as a critical safety net against rising dropout rates.
“Belonging seems to be a throughline that supports a range of positive experiences during college, especially the first year,” said study author Blake Glatley, a U-M graduate student in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology. “Our research indicates that first-year students who feel they belong in their classes and on campus are more inclined to form connections with their classmates and dormmates.”
Glatley and colleagues analyzed more than 1,100 students at a large Midwestern university to understand how feelings of belonging relate to peer connections. Glatley and colleagues used social network analysis to map student connections.
“Beyond financial issues, a leading cause of student drop out is a lack of belonging,” said co-author Allison Ryan, a professor at the Marsal Family School of Education. “There is a strong link of not feeling included and, therefore, not confident in the classrooms and not making connections with peers and faculty on campus.”
Findings show that students with stronger feelings of belonging, whether in classrooms or residential programs, reported more peer ties. This reaffirms the importance of campus and community involvement, not just classroom participation, in helping students adjust, the researchers say.
“Colleges that are better equipped to support their students during the first year will likely see more positive academic outcomes for their student population and greater social integration among them,” Glatley said. “One potential avenue for this may be found in living learning communities that provide students with additional opportunities to form connections and develop a sense of belonging.”
Racial background matters, in complex ways
While the study expected students of color to report less belonging due to higher education’s history of exclusion, the results indicated that reality is more complicated than predicted.
“Due to this history, we anticipated that students of color would have lower average feelings of belonging, which would ultimately be associated with their self-reported social networks,” Glatley said. “This hypothesis was only partially supported, an unexpected but positive finding.”
Although the researchers require more data to make a definitive claim, they suspect that first-year students from marginalized backgrounds have more obstacles to overcome to feel as if they belong, especially at predominantly white institutions.
“Therefore, they may compensate for these challenges by building a strong social network,” Glatley said. “Doing so may offer these students greater opportunities to find peers who they genuinely connect with, which can ultimately support subsequent feelings of belonging.”
The researchers urge parents, policymakers and university leaders to recognize that academic and social success depends on social belonging. Students who feel they “fit in” are better positioned to thrive.
“Although there are a host of other factors that determine degree completion, belonging and integration into the social community may be an especially underestimated component of college success,” Glatley said.
“If we want students to thrive in college, we should place a greater priority on programming that supports students’ social integration into the college environment, especially during the first years of college.”
The study is published in the Merrill-Palmer Quarterly and recently released by Project MUSE.
Read the full study: Peer Relationships and Sense of Belonging in the Transition to College (PDF)
