ABSTRACT
This introduction addresses the growing emphasis on taking students’ subjective experiences of belonging into account when engaging in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. The chapter highlights the need to recognize institutional-level factors that shape student sense of belonging, rather than focusing primarily or exclusively on individual-level factors that shape student experience and outcomes. While the scholarship on belonging has identified an array of factors that are associated with student sense of belonging, including the important role of faculty, there is little research that addresses what faculty can do in concrete terms to promote a sense of belonging, particularly in the domain where they have the most influence – academic belonging. The 12 chapters in the volume introduce readers to an array of collaborative, cutting-edge efforts pursued by faculty, students, administrators, and researchers to develop pedagogies, programs, strategies, and environments that help students develop academic belonging; that is, a sense of connection, competence, and confidence in academic domains.
