Belonging Through Dissent: A National Study of Student Activist Sense of Belonging and Institutional Integration

Student activists have a long history of causing disruption on American college campuses. They have fought against numerous racial, sexual, and economic injustices in order to provide a more welcoming environment. Research supports that students who have a stronger sense of belonging and connection to their institution are more likely to persist to graduation than those who do not. This research, using two instruments to measure Sense of Belonging (Hoffman, Richmond, Morrow, & Salomone, 2002) and Institutional Integration (French & Oakes, 2004), shows that student activists, in spite of organizing against their institutions, actually achieve statistically significant higher scores on measures of belonging and connection than do their non-activist peers. The only exception is the subscale measuring a student’s desire to stay and graduate from their institution, which had a higher, but not statistically significant, score for non-activists over student activists. When looking at experiences of student activists by race/ethnicity only a few items achieved statistically significant levels. White students in comparison to Hispanic students experienced a statistically significant positive difference in their overall Sense of Belonging Scale, the connection between peer groups, and the overall Revised Institutional Integration Scale. The differences between students based upon their sexual orientations did not rise to statistical significance through any of the subscales or overall scales. In order to create an environment in which student activists want to stay enrolled, the researcher suggests that institutions have a more positive view of student activism, develop clear and supportive policies governing student activism, and equip and embolden cultural centers to assist in the support of student activism.