The five stories in this collection are an exploration of realist fiction through a variety of narrative points of view and a diversity of characters. The stories explore issues of class, age, work and family, but in each piece, the characters struggle in their own way to discover a sense of belonging in their own lives. Central to each of these stories is a sense of place. All are set in the American west, most in rural California and the land and activities of place provide not only a specific landscape, but often a limitation, a narrative element against which the characters both resist and find their truest home.

From 2012 to 2015, students' academic performance at a community college in North Carolina fell below North Carolina Community College System baseline benchmarks despite the institution's adoption of several student success initiatives. Building from the established correlation between student academic achievement and academic engagement and the importance of noncognitive competencies in moderating student academic engagement, this qualitative case study investigated the academic experiences of 7 students who were members of the Paying It Forward mentoring program to determine the types of support and resources that students needed to develop and hone intrinsic motivation, sense of belonging, and self-efficacy-the noncognitivenoncognitive competencies proven to most directly moderate academic engagement. The guiding frameworks included a student-engagement framework developed by the Chicago Consortium on School Research, the learner-centered curriculum framework, and the generalized internal/external model. The research questions focused on specific factors that facilitated students' development of intrinsic motivation, sense of belonging, and academic confidence. The findings identified relationships between student academic performance and academic engagement as moderated by these noncognitivenoncognitive competencies and supported previous research concerning the invaluable role of faculty in developing students' sense of belonging. A resulting professional development project may enable faculty to systematically bolster students' academic engagement and performance by directly supporting mastery of these noncognitivenoncognitive competencies. This project may contribute to social change through increased graduation and transfer rates, which would create opportunities for enhanced social capital.

In 1975 Indonesian forces invaded Dili, the capital of East Timor. The invasion and ensuing occupation forced thousands of East Timorese to leave their homes and seek refuge in Australia and other countries. This study considers the situation of a particular group of East Timorese refugees: those who fled to Australia during the 1990s and who were children or young adolescents at the time of their flight. Founded upon an understanding of social identity as being constantly transformed though a dialectic relation between the individual and his or her sociocultural surroundings, this dissertation considers the consequences of refugee experiences on individual identity and belonging, as well as the processes of conceptualising self and negotiating identity within changing social and cultural structures. The relationship between conflict and flight, resettlement, acculturation, identity and attachment is explored, and particular attention is given to issues of socialisation and categorisation, age and agency, hybridity, and ambiguity. Through a qualitative anthropological methodology informed by theories of cultural identity, adolescence and cross-cultural socialisation, the thesis seeks to shed light on the various dynamics that have influenced the young East Timorese people’s identity and sense of belonging, and considers the impact of acculturation and socialisation into a new culture at a critical period of the young people’s lives. / Masters Thesis

<p>Syftet med denna studie var att förstå och beskriva upplevelser av delaktighet under rehabiliteringsprocessen. Studien utgick från fem intervjuer som utfördes hos personer som har varit långtidssjukskrivna och som har deltagit i olika rehabiliteringsinsatser. Intervjuerna bearbetades kvalitativ, textanalysen utfördes utifrån hermeneutisk teori och metod. Frågeställningen var inriktad mot klienternas upplevelse av delaktighet under rehabiliteringsprocessen. Resultatet visade att delaktighet har förekommit vid rehabiliteringen, men begreppet har olika ansikten. Det konstaterades att motivation är nära förknippad med graden av engagemang i olika rehabiliteringsaktiviteter. Även handlingsutrymme och inflytande i de beslut klienterna har deltagit i har spelat roll för individens delaktighet. Vidare alla klienter hade en hög grad av tillhörighet/ samhörighet.</p> / <p>The purpose of this study was to understand and describe the experiences of the participation during the rehabilitation process. The study started out from five interviews with persons who have been long term sick and who have taken part in different rehabilitation programs. The interviews were worked up by a qualitative method, the analysis of the text were made by a hermeneutic theory and method. The question of the study was directed towards the clients' experiences of involvement during the rehabilitation process. The result showed that the clients have felt an involvement in the rehabilitation process, but the concept has different faces. It has been established that motivation is close related to the level of commitment of different activities of the rehabilitation. The ability to private action and influence in the decisions where the clients were involved has also played a part for the participation of the individual. Furthermore all clients had a strong sense of belonging.</p>

Syftet med denna studie var att förstå och beskriva upplevelser av delaktighet under rehabiliteringsprocessen. Studien utgick från fem intervjuer som utfördes hos personer som har varit långtidssjukskrivna och som har deltagit i olika rehabiliteringsinsatser. Intervjuerna bearbetades kvalitativ, textanalysen utfördes utifrån hermeneutisk teori och metod. Frågeställningen var inriktad mot klienternas upplevelse av delaktighet under rehabiliteringsprocessen. Resultatet visade att delaktighet har förekommit vid rehabiliteringen, men begreppet har olika ansikten. Det konstaterades att motivation är nära förknippad med graden av engagemang i olika rehabiliteringsaktiviteter. Även handlingsutrymme och inflytande i de beslut klienterna har deltagit i har spelat roll för individens delaktighet. Vidare alla klienter hade en hög grad av tillhörighet/ samhörighet. / The purpose of this study was to understand and describe the experiences of the participation during the rehabilitation process. The study started out from five interviews with persons who have been long term sick and who have taken part in different rehabilitation programs. The interviews were worked up by a qualitative method, the analysis of the text were made by a hermeneutic theory and method. The question of the study was directed towards the clients' experiences of involvement during the rehabilitation process. The result showed that the clients have felt an involvement in the rehabilitation process, but the concept has different faces. It has been established that motivation is close related to the level of commitment of different activities of the rehabilitation. The ability to private action and influence in the decisions where the clients were involved has also played a part for the participation of the individual. Furthermore all clients had a strong sense of belonging.

Community colleges continue to experience high levels of student attrition and low degree/certificate completion rates. Given extant literature, there appears to be a need to reexamine how interactions between students and the institution, and students and institutional agents are taking place, with the aim of identifying institutional practices that deleteriously or positively impact degree completion and thus guide colleges to develop action plans to improve conditions for student success. This study examined how factors such as institutional commitment to students, mattering, sense of belonging, interactions with diverse peers, perceptions of the campus climate, engagement/involvement, socio-academic integrative experiences, and goal commitment collectively affected community college students’ intent to persist to degree completion. The proposed model tested the tenability of seven propositions examining how the above constructs interact to influence intent to persist. The sample consisted of 2,088 multiply diverse community college students. The conceptual model was grounded on Astin’s (1991) Input-Environment-Outcome model and was tested in the context of structural equation modeling. Multiple group invariance analyses for race/ethnicity were conducted. The conceptual model explained 28% of the variance on intent to persist for Asian students, 21% for White students, and 19% for Latino/a students. Results indicated that transition support from family/friends exerted the highest effect on intent to persist across all racial/ethnic groups, followed by engagement/involvement, perceptions of mattering, interactions with diverse peers, GPA, goal commitment, and socio-academic integrative experiences, albeit varying by group. This study was the first in the literature to empirically demonstrate a causal effect between institutional commitment to students and perceptions of mattering. Mattering, in turn, exerted a moderate to strong influence on engagement/involvement, socio-academic integrative experiences, sense of belonging, and indirectly on intent to persist. Evidence in support of an omnibus “student development and success” construct, as alluded to by Wolf-Wendel, et al. (2009) is also presented. Of import to these findings is that while this construct explained a significant proportion of the variance for engagement/involvement, belonging, mattering, and interactions with diverse peers, the individual factors exerted an independent effect on intent to persist. Implications for theory, research, and practice are also discussed.

The growing Latino population is directly affecting institutions of higher education. Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs), whose stated missions do not specifically address Latinos, are becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). As HSIs continue to emerge across the country, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are also responding to demographic shifts, especially in Texas. Although their historic mission focuses on educating African Americans, some Texas HBCU presidents and administrators maintain that their supportive campus environment could serve as a possible opportunity for Latino student success. HBCU outreach efforts offer a variety of areas for further investigation, but the intent of this study was to examine the first, critical year and perceptions of sense of belonging. Furthermore, since Mexican Americans represent the majority of Latinos in Texas, indeed the country, this qualitative study specifically focused on the first-year experiences of Mexican Americans in a Texas HBCU. The primary methods for data collection included two semi-structured one-on-one interviews, a student questionnaire, campus observations, and analytic memos. Thus, the current study sought to fully document the first-year experience and perceptions of sense of belonging as recounted by second- to fifth-year Mexican American students enrolled in a Texas HBCU. / text

In an effort to better understand retention, a survey was developed to ask students at a southern land-grant university how they communicate with each other. Communication Infrastructure Theory (CIT) was previously used to identify communication networks in urban neighborhoods. My thesis adapted this theory and networks to identify the strength of three communication techniques of college students and how it effects a student’s sense of belonging which can impact that student’s intent to stay in school.

This study examined the perceptions of non-native English speaking immigrant students at a small Canadian university relating to their transition to university, their experiences within the social and academic contexts of the campus, and their sense of belonging on their campus. This study used a phenomenological approach, and was supported by a conceptual framework of minority student persistence and belonging within postsecondary education. The findings of this study suggest that these students’ positive social experiences and perception of the campus as being diverse and open to diversity were connected to students’ sense of belonging. The findings also suggest that increased availability of customized support is needed for non-native English speaking students on this Canadian campus, and that greater awareness among university faculty and administration needs to be paid to students’ integration in classroom and campus practices. This thesis concludes with recommendations for practice and future research.

This qualitative study explored six post high school students' experiences within one high school Dance Academy program, over a four-year period, to learn if their dance experiences promoted student engagement. Student engagement occurs when students are invested in their learning, is the product of motivation and active learning, and is linked to student success. Semi-structured individual and group interviews were used as instruments of data collection and the data was transcribed and analyzed. Four main themes emerged from this study in relation to the students' experiences within the Dance Academy in relation to student engagement: 1) increased self-confidence, 2) healthy relationships amongst peers and with their teacher, 3) a sense of belonging, and 4) increased feelings if self-worth. The outcomes from this study indicate that dance, as part of a high school curriculum, was advantageous in providing these students with a unique learning experience that increased their relationship with the curriculum and fostered student engagement. Further research on the implications of teaching the arts, and in particular dance, in high school could benefit curricular programming and pedagogical practice.