College Belonging

How First-Year and First-Generation Students Navigate Campus Life

By Lisa M. Nunn

SERIES: Critical Issues in American Education

Rutgers University Press

College Belonging reveals how colleges’ and universities’ efforts to foster a sense of belonging in their students are misguided. Colleges bombard new students with the message to “get out there!” and “find your place” by joining student organizations, sports teams, clubs and the like. Nunn shows that this reflects a flawed understanding of what belonging is and how it works. Drawing on the sociological theories of Emile Durkheim, College Belonging shows that belonging is something that members of a community offer to each other. It is something that must be given, like a gift. Individuals cannot simply walk up to a group or community and demand belonging. That’s not how it works. The group must extend a sense of belonging to each and every member. It happens by making a person feel welcome, to feel that their presence matters to the group, that they would be missed if they were gone. This critical insight helps us understand why colleges' push for students simply to “get out there!” does not always work.

Administrators have long persisted with a problematic notion of inclusion that puts the responsibility on individual students, without thought to what belonging looks and feels like. In this fabulous book, Nunn skillfully argues that institutional context shapes the most salient forms of belonging. Nobody has tackled the issue of belonging quite in this way, and the intervention is so needed. Laura T. Hamilton, author of Parenting to a Degree: How Family Matters for College Women’s Success

College Belonging presents a fascinating account of students’ experiences, informed by in-depth interviews, and offers a level of complexity rarely encountered. Nunn compellingly argues that those who care about equity must care about belonging. Her findings show why common practices in higher education are insufficient and what colleges can do to meet the belonging needs of their students.' Blake R. Silver, author of The Cost of Inclusion: How Student Conformity Leads to Inequality on College Campuses

College Belonging: Author discusses her new book on first-generation students and how they navigate college life,' by Scott Jaschik Inside Higher Education

New Books Network: Academic Life podcast interview with Lisa M. Nunn New Books Network: Academic Life podcast

An important update to sense of belonging literature because of its claims regarding campus-community belonging and how belonging cannot be earned by an individual but rather must be received from a community.' The Review of Higher Education

Teaching First-Year and First-Generation Students: A Conversation with Lisa Nunn New Books Network: The Academic Life

LISA M. NUNN is a professor of sociology and the director of the Center for Educational Excellence at University of San Diego. She is the author of Defining Student Success: The Role of School and Culture and 33 Simple Strategies for Faculty: A Week-by-Week Resource for Teaching First-Year and First-Generation Students (both Rutgers University Press).

Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1          Social Belonging vs. Campus-Community Belonging
2          Campus Community Belonging and Organizational Structures
3          Academic Competence and Academic Belonging
4          The Academic Community and Academic Belonging
5          Ethnoracial Diversity and Belonging
6          “Nice” Diversity
7          Recommendations for Campuses
Theoretical Appendix: Durkheim and Belonging
Methodological Appendix
Notes
References
Index

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