I already belong: Collectivistic College Students\u27 Family Belonging, Institutional Social Belonging, and Intentions to Persist

Children of immigrant and refugee populations are increasing in the U.S. and are currently underrepresented at U.S. universities. The purpose of my research is to examine how collectivistic, immigrant-origin students and individualistic, U.S.-origin students may respond differently to university strategies to establish institutional social belonging in order to facilitate institutional persistence. I propose a model that adds an alternate path for collectivistic students to Tinto’s Model of College Persistence, bypassing institutional social belonging and capitalizing on existing bonds with family. Collectivistic students’ existing bonds with family, which meet their human need for belonging, may facilitate their institutional academic belonging and motivate them to persist in college. In contrast, individualistic students\u27 persistence may be facilitated by new connections at the university, as opposed to maintaining and being supported by existing, extended family connections. This correlational study will test the relationship between collectivistic identity, institutional academic belonging, institutional social belonging, and family of origin belonging. Seventy-five U.S.-origin and 75 immigrant-origin college freshman currently enrolled at the University of Nebraska Omaha will be recruited to complete a 60-item survey. Implications for university recruiting and retention strategies will be discussed