Research on adolescents sense of belonging in schools is plentiful; however, there is an obvious lack of research conducted in early childhood years. Friendship groups have been shown to be impactful in helping students feel like they belong in school. This study explores how kindergarteners talk about friendship in the context of belonging in a two-way immersion school. I pay particular attention to the role primary language plays in developing a sense of belonging and friendships at school. The 19 kindergarteners in this study were interviewed in small linguistically homogenous groups of 2 or 3 students. Each focus group was shown 2 puppets that represented one English-speaking and one Spanish-speaking child. Students were then asked to help each puppet understand what it would be like to be a new student at the school and what they would need to know to fit in. Findings reveal that these students recognize the utility of language for doing schoolwork and fitting into the institution of schooling, but did not highlight the importance of language as a necessary tool for making friends. Students focus on the importance of understanding the social context in order to belong at school. More research is needed regarding how school programs and social context influence the development of friendship.

Aktuell liegt der Anteil von Studentinnen in den MINT Studiengängen ca. 17 % niedriger als in anderen Studiengängen. Welche Faktoren führen zu dieser Situation? Eine Vielzahl an Faktoren wirkt sich auf die Studienwahl und -persistenz aus. Die zugrundeliegende Masterarbeit untersuchte die Beziehungen zwischen Geschlecht, Social Belonging, Belonging Uncertainty, Stereotype Fit und Chilly Climate. Besonders lag der Fokus auf der Erforschung des Einflusses von Social Belonging auf Erfolgsparamenter (Identifikation, Erfolgserwartung, Turnover Intention, Notendurchschnitt und Anzahl der Drittversuche zum Bestehen einer Prüfungsleistung). Außerdem wurde untersucht, ob Stereotype Fit als Mediator die Beziehung zwischen Geschlecht und Social Belonging beeinflusst. Grundlage der Studie bildete eine Online-Umfrage an der Fakultät Physik der TU Dresden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Frauen geringere Werte im Bereich Social Belonging und Stereotype Fit angaben, sowie höhere Werte im Bereich Belonging Uncertainty. Identifikation wurde sowohl durch Social Belonging, als auch Belonging Uncertainty vorhergesagt. Die Erfolgserwartung wurde signifikant von Geschlecht und Social Belonging beeinflusst. Für den Notendurschnitt und die Turnover Intention war Social Belonging der einzige signifikante Prädiktor. Die Anzahl der Drittversuche wurde positiv von Belonging Uncertainty vorhergesagt. Die Hypothese, dass Stereotype Fit ein Mediator ist, ließ sich mit den Daten nicht belegen. Stattdessen zeigen explorative Mediationsanalysen, dass eher Social Belonging und Belonging Uncertainty die Mediatoren der Beziehung zwischen Geschlecht und Stereotype Fit sind. Alle Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass Social Belonging ein wichtiger Faktor für den Erfolg von Frauen in MINT-Fächern ist. Daraus lässt sich ableiten, dass eine Förderung von Social Belonging im Studium positive Auswirkungen auf den Erfolg von Frauen haben würde. Aktuelle Forschungsergebnisse zeigen, dass sich Social Belonging durch kostengünstige und kurze Interventionen steigern lässt. Eine Umsetzung von Fördermöglichkeiten im Bildungskontext wird im Rahmen von weiterer Forschung empfohlen. Mein herzlicher Dank geht an Dr. Anika Ihmels für die empowernde Betreuung während der Masterarbeit sowie die Fakultät Physik, deren Gleichstellungsbeauftragten und den FSR Physik, welche die Umfrage unterstützten und ermöglichten. / Currently, the percentage of female students in STEM majors is about 17% lower than in other majors. What factors lead to this situation? A variety of factors impact student choice and persistence. The underlying master's thesis examined the relationships between gender, social belonging, belonging uncertainty, stereotype fit, and chilly climate. In particular, the focus was on exploring the influence of social belonging on selected success parameters (identification, expectation of success, turnover intention, grade point average, and number of third attempts to pass an exam performance). It also examined whether Stereotype Fit acts as a mediator on the relationship between gender and Social Belonging. The study was based on an online survey at the Faculty of Physics at the TU Dresden. The results show that women reported lower scores in Social Belonging and Stereotype Fit, and higher scores in Belonging Uncertainty. Identification was predicted by both Social Belonging and Belonging Uncertainty. Expectation of success was significantly affected by gender and Social Belonging. For grade point average and turnover intention, Social Belonging was the only significant predictor. The number of third attempts was positively predicted by Belonging Uncertainty. The hypothesis that Stereotype Fit is a mediator could not be supported by the data. Instead, exploratory mediation analyses show that Social Belonging and Belonging Uncertainty are more likely to be mediators of the relationship between gender and Stereotype Fit. All results suggest that Social Belonging is an important factor for women's success in STEM fields. Therefore, it can be inferred that promoting Social Belonging in college would have a positive impact on women's success. Current research shows that Social Belonging can be increased through low-cost and brief interventions. Implementation of promotional opportunities in the educational context is recommended as part of further research. My sincere thanks go to Dr. Anika Ihmels for the empowering supervision during the master thesis as well as the Faculty of Physics, its Equal Opportunity Officer and the FSR Physics, who made the survey possible and supported it.

During the latest armed conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR) from 2013 to the present, narratives emerged regarding who was an autochthon and who was not, pitting “true Central Africans” against “foreigners”, Christians against Muslims. This new cycle of violence is embedded in a long history of political violence in the CAR. Still, the claim of one group being more autochthon than another has not been a prominent feature of previous conflicts, neither has fighting in the past formed so clearly along religious identities. Being a Son of the Soil, an autochthon, evokes an image that denies CAR’s history of migration of social groups and reify fixity, and such conflicts have also been present in other parts of Africa, as well as in Europe and Asia. To date, most literature seeking to understand autochthony-related armed conflict has been dominated by elite-centric analysis that highlight the mobilization of autochthony as a strategy to retain power in cases of political liberalization or democratization (Cameroon, Kenya or Côte d’Ivoire). When not elite-centric, analyses of autochthony-related conflict have emphasized land, access to land issues or crudely predatory logics of vigilante groups on the local level (Côte d’Ivoire or the DRC). In CAR, neither political liberalization, nor land issues alone were prominent, but autochthony was a strategy as witnessed in other African cases of autochthony-related armed conflicts. In that sense, this research asks how and why is autochthony being mobilized in the CAR politics before and after the 2013 coup? The dissertation argues that elites and ordinary citizens discursively mobilize autochthony as an identity capital across various scales. They do it to access non-land related resources, claim hierarchy, and discriminate against the other. The mobilization of autochthony is tied to longer legitimacy-seeking strategies of the elite, and autochthony is a symbolic myth that can be mobilized at various levels. The dissertation’s main theoretical contribution is to challenge the tendency to consider elites and supporters as belonging and subscribing to different discursive realm. This study has considered that autochthony links leaders and their followers in a type of pre-given conception that no longer needs explanation. This contributes to considering elites and their supporters as tied by the same discursive realm, but the concrete meaning of the discourse is different across multiple levels. To make the argument, the dissertation uses a qualitative multi-method approach predominantly centered on discourse analysis, fieldwork, interviews, and newspapers archival research. My research shows that understanding autochthony violence requires a simultaneous analysis of how autochthony is given meaning at different levels by various actors in everyday practices from the macro to the micro. Instrumentalizing autochthony lies at the interplay of all these levels. In this work, autochthony is vague enough to connect leaders to followers and, at the same time, precise enough for listeners to make sense of the term by connecting it to their daily experience of it. The long-term existence of the autochthony discourse allows it to change and morph at times of heightened crisis. It does not emerge overnight, but it has a longer genealogy that must be understood in context. That is, it is not simply because Bozizé targeted Muslim-foreigners in his speeches that people mobilized against them. Top-down manipulation might have resonated with followers but understanding of autochthony also operated independently of the top-down manipulation. That the conflict manifested around sectarian lines fits within an autochthony framework because autochthony is an empty identity marker whose content can be filled in many ways – most frequently with reference to ethnicity, religion, language, myths of origin, or some combination of such markers.

Decoloniality has become a buzzword in the Canadian international development sector. The term intends to draw continuities between Canada's colonial past and present and draws attention to the way that the practice of international development perpetuates colonial power structures, specifically what Pailey (2020) has called the “White gaze of development.” When racialized actors in a white settler state like Canada are involved in international development initiatives in their countries of ethnic origin, they are often met with a binary, racist discourse among the broader Canadian community that either praises them as useful "tools" of Canadian foreign policy or denigrates their activities as a posing a potential "risk" to national interests. As a development actor on the world stage that sees itself as “cultural mosaic,” Canadians and the Canadian government should consider the potential for its diaspora to contribute to its foreign policies and strategies. Diasporic development can help with innovation in the development industry by expanding ideas about development and how it can be done. Reductionist understandings about diasporic transnationalism limit these possibilities, which underline the imperative to better understand diasporic identity and transnationalism. Using a Bourdieusian (1986) field analysis, Bhabha's notions of (1994) hybridity and liminality, as well as Yuval-Davis' (2006) conceptualization of belonging, this research explores the negotiations of belonging among the second-generation Tamil diaspora in Canada as they engage in development initiatives focused on communities in Sri Lanka. Through in-depth interviews with 34 participants, this research finds that the diaspora has day-to-day interactions in a number of sites or "micro-fields" which inform their engagement in international development initiatives that are focused on communities in Sri Lanka, and that their negotiations of belonging and otherness are salient in their development experiences. Members of the diaspora also interrogate coloniality through their hybridity and subsequent positioning in a liminal space. They reject colonial discourse by constructing belonging to the communities at the development sites and valuing localization. However, their interrogation of power structures across different fields as well as their multiple subject positions also contribute to their reflexivity about the treatment of Indigenous peoples in Turtle Island/Canada.

Literature indicates that while attending a predominantly White institution (PWI), Black men often experience stigmatization and feelings of alienation. Despite concerns of racial tension experienced by Black men at PWIs there is limited research exploring the campus climate perceptions of Black men in college. While Black students may have some similarities in navigating predominantly White campuses, there are relevant differences influenced by the intersection of race and gender. The post-secondary success of Black men has been identified as an area of concern in higher education due to the considerable disparities seen in college persistence and completion rates. However, discourse often focuses on perceived deficits of Black men in college instead of understanding how institutions can better support their success. There is a need to shift the conversation to explore how institutional climate plays a role in the experiences and outcomes of Black men. Research suggests that developing a sense of belonging is influenced by context and environment and can be challenging, but impactful for Black men. The current study seeks to understand the role that perceived campus climate plays in the development of sense of belonging for Black undergraduate men attending a PWI. The guiding research questions were: (1) What are the perceptions of campus climate for undergraduate Black men who attend a predominantly White institution? (2) How does the intersection of racial and gender identity influence the campus climate perceptions of undergraduate Black men? (3) How do the perceptions of campus climate influence the sense of belonging for undergraduate Black men? This qualitative study used various data collection methods including interviews, photovoice, and focus groups to gain an in-depth understanding of participants perceptions and experiences. Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, this analysis offers insights and makes meaning of 12 Black men’s lived experiences and perceptions of their campus belonging while attending a PWI. Eight themes emerged in response to the study research questions. The findings suggest that the campus climate perceptions of Black men are related to the intersection of their race and gender. Additionally, there were salient factors of campus climate that influenced the sense of belonging for participants in the study such as the absence/presence of Black peers and faculty/staff and supportive spaces of cultural familiarity. The findings of this study could have great implications for the future success of Black men as higher education institutions are confronted with declining enrollment and continued disparities in college persistence and graduation rates for their Black male students. / Educational Administration

This project deals with the experiences of asylum-seeking persons in their struggle to receive protection in different European countries, exploring how the sense of belonging is shaped during fragmented migration journeys. Conducting biographic-narrative interviews with five persons I met while working in a community centre in Greece, the research shifts the gaze from exclusionary citizenship regimes to migrant agency, revealing the distinct tactics, perceptions and performances of belonging on the move. The findings highlight the dynamic nature of belonging, challenging the notion that migration necessarily implies a rupture with significant attachments. Encounters with state and asylum authorities and regulations are experienced as renewed instances of insecurity, hindering belonging, whereas the community centre offers solace and alternative membership. The research partners express a pragmatic sense of “elective belonging” in Germany and Switzerland, based on long-awaited security and existential mobility, despite weakened community ties and the constraints imposed by European migration policies.

No description available.

The study explored the question of how Kosovar-Albanians living in Sweden identify themselves; whether they felt that they belonged in Sweden, Kosovo or both places, and; the transnational ties they maintain with Kosovo. The study participants included six individuals  with Kosovar-Albanian origins, half of them born in Sweden and the other half who had immigrated to Sweden from Kosovo. The data for the study was collected using semi-structured interviews. The findings of the study suggest that both immigrants born in Sweden to first generation Kosovar immigrants and those born in Kosovo but immigrated to Sweden had fluid and dual identities. Sometimes they identified as Kosovo-Albanians, sometimes they identified as Swedish while at other times they identified as both. Those born in Sweden indicated that they felt that they belonged in Sweden, while those born in Kosovo did not have a clear sense of belonging. The study established that the sense of belonging was determined by the perception of others. Native Swedes did not think the immigrants belonged in Sweden because of their Kosovo-Albanian heritage while those in Kosovo felt that the immigration process had changed the immigrants thus they did not belong in Kosovo. The study established that both the first and second generation immigrants maintained transnational ties with Kosovo.

No description available.

Tourism is a worldwide phenomenon and an important industry. In recent years, however, questions have arisen surrounding whether tourism can be harmful to destinations when exceeding their capacities. Visby is a medieval seaside town and a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Gotland, a Swedish island. With 900 000 annual visitors, Visby is one of the most visited destinations in the country, and tourism is an important part of the island’s economy. With the heavy flow of tourists and second homeowners in Visby, especially during summer season, signs and effects of overtourism have become prevalent. Locals in Visby are struggling with housing issues, large seasonal pressure, et cetera, affecting their livelihoods and community. One of the root causes is believed to be unsustainable tourism patterns. This thesis looks at how overtourism could affect residents’ sense of place belonging and community. Local university students at Campus Gotland were chosen as the focus group and were asked about their views on their place belonging and community in relation to consequences brought by tourism via a survey. The results show indications that tourism-related seasonal differences and housing issues may be affecting the students’ sense of place belonging and community negatively.