#345: Belongingness from the Classroom to the Field: Buffers, Boosters, and the Role of Identity Centrality for Minority Students in Computer Science

Belongingness (i.e., a sense of belonging) in an academic field affects many key outcomes and is especially impactful for underrepresented students. Our study examines why belongingness in the classroom sometimes, but not always, affects belongingness in the field, and whether there are differences between minority and non-minority students in the importance of different factors known to contribute to belongingness in computer science. We found that participating in extracurricular computer science communities and seeing representation in the field was more important for minority students in both buffering negative classroom experiences and boosting belongingness in the field. Critically, we only found these differences when using perceived (i.e., self-identified) versus actual (i.e., numeric) minority status, suggesting that identity centrality may offer a theoretical explanation—and practical implications—for addressing challenges of belongingness for minority students.