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.
This project consists of 5 separate work packages (WP), which are described below:
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 will allow us to gain insights in the student’s sense of belonging at UU and the possible effect on their study results. This survey will also provide faculty specific information that will help us to tailor the different work packages to the different faculties.
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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