Digital Commons Network^™

The Belonging Process: How Low-Income, Bipoc & First-Generation Students On Byu Campus Experience Belonging, Josephine Zenger

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This mixed-methods study employed the Experience Sampling Method (ESM; Csíkszentmihályi; Larson, 1984; Zirkel et al., 2015) to document the feelings and experiences of belonging for 22 low-income, BIPOC, first generation college students and a comparison group of 15 White, middle-upper class students at Brigham Young University (BYU), a predominantly White, middle class, religious university. Due to, among other things, these demographic realities, BYU grapples with structures and cultures that marginalize minority students on campus. Data analysis from ESM surveys, interviews, and focus groups reveal that regardless of background (i.e, including White middle-class students), participants experienced a sense of exclusion at …

Incorporating Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Principles Into Our Metadata, Nicole Lewis, Allie Mccormack, Rachel Jane Wittmann

Faculty Publications

This presentation was given as part of the Best of Core Forum Webinar Series.

In early 2021, a group of librarians at two university libraries embarked on a journey to review and update harmful subject headings and other metadata in their catalog, digital library, and finding aids. This session will discuss the background of the project and where the librarians currently stand in the process of remediating these records, including their efforts to create student internships to address problematic language in archival finding aids as well as create a community user advisory group. Special attention will be given to creating …

Incorporating Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Principles Into Our Metadata, Nicole Lewis, Allie Mccormack, Rachel Jane Wittmann

Faculty Publications

This presentation was given at the Core Forum 2022 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In early 2021, a group of librarians at two university libraries embarked on a journey to review and update harmful subject headings and other metadata in their catalog, digital library, and finding aids. This session will discuss the background of the project and where the librarians currently stand in the process of remediating these records, including their efforts to create student internships to address problematic language in archival finding aids as well as create a community user advisory group. Special attention will be given to creating …

Incorporating Inclusivity In Our Catalog, Nicole Lewis, Rachel Jane Wittmann

Faculty Publications

This presentation was given at the Utah Library Association Annual Conference in Layton, Utah.

In early 2021, the University of Utah embarked on the journey to review and update harmful subject headings in their catalog, digital library metadata, and finding aids. This session will discuss the background of the project and where we are currently at in the process of changing harmful subject headings.

More Than One Way: How Migrants Are Able To Achieve Belonging Beyond Their Legal Status, Claudia Soto

Theses and Dissertations

Is legal status a master status for migrant belonging? If not, how do other factors--such as social networks, religious participation, language and cultural familiarity--shape belonging? Over the past few years, some migration scholars have suggested that legal status is a "master status"which determines migrant outcomes (Gonzales 2015). Other literature suggests that migrant outcomes are determined by a variety of factors, asserting that migrant experiences can be better understood by studying the interaction between these factors (Enriquez 2017; Valdez and Golash-Boza 2020). Utilizing 73 semi-structured interviews with migrants in Utah, I compare the experiences of refugees, permanent migrants, temporary migrants, and …

Student Identity And Inclusion: A Model For Sense Of Belonging At Brigham Young University, Jose Rodriguez

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Campus racial climate in universities across the United States have been linked to several aspects attributed to student success. One aspect of campus climate is sense of belonging, which is correlated with retention, graduation, and student satisfaction. This study seeks to understand sense of belonging and the factors that impact it. In studies across the country, white students have been found to experience a greater sense of belonging than students of color. I seek to discover the factors associated with belonging and their effects. Based on a logistic regression model, students of color and white students at BYU do have …

“Estamos Aquí Pero No Soy De Aqui”: American Mexican Youth, Belonging And Schooling In Rural, Central Mexico, Eric Ruiz Bybee, Erin Feinauer Whiting, Bryant Jensen, Victoria Savage, Alisa Baker, Emma Holdaway

Faculty Publications

This article explores notions of belonging and citizenship for “American Mexican” students— Mexican-heritage youth born in the United States who return to Mexico with their families. Our findings reveal belonging as a sociocultural practice that participants negotiated spatially and relationally, chiefly by making their US-born status more and less visible within particular spaces at school. The experiences of American-Mexican youth reveal the crucial roles of migration and belonging in shaping civic identities and future potentials in a transnational world.

Stardust, Karen Abbott

Children's Book and Media Review

Little sisters can feel left out when they can't doing things quite as well as an older sibling. This little girl doesn't knit as well as her sister, she doesn't win the costume contest, and she can’t find her mother's wedding ring. Her sister is a star! Everyone says so each time she does something her little sister hasn't. Grandpa finds little sister outside being sad. He tells her how the universe began and how stardust makes up everything on earth, even a little girl who is still growing and learning. She tells us that even we are made of …

Betty Before X, Taylor Harris

Children's Book and Media Review

No matter how hard she tries, Betty just can’t get her mother, Ollie Mae, to love her. One day, Betty decides that she has had enough of the beatings and lack of love, and so she runs away. A kind, well-off couple takes her in as their daughter. Soon, Betty and her friend Suesetta begin volunteering with the Housewives’ League, an organization that encourages people to not shop at places where Negroes can’t be hired. With all the prejudice, racism, and hate surrounding blacks at this time, Betty is determined to make a difference and learns from her new mother’s …

A Happy Hat, Kayla Packard

Children's Book and Media Review

A hat reminisces about its creation and the ups and downs of being passed from owner to owner. When the hat is taken away by a stray dog, it finds itself alone in the woods. A mother bird finds the hat and builds a nest inside for her eggs. The hat provides shelter and warmth as the babies hatch and grow. As the birds fly away, the hat looks forward to future use and finds joy in helping others in different, and sometimes unconventional, ways. Readers will be inspired by this simple illustration of being positive amidst trying circumstances, feeling …

The List, Katelyn Osborn

Children's Book and Media Review

Every year at Mount Washington High School, The List goes up right before Homecoming. The four “prettiest” girls and the four “ugliest” girls are on it, and that’s all anyone can talk about. This year, the prettiest girls listed are freshman Abby, who wishes her sister could understand how much of an honor this is; sophomore Lauren, the new girl who’s only ever been homeschooled; junior Bridget, whose body transformation hasn’t been a healthy one; and senior Margo, who isn’t surprised to be there. The girls on the other side of the list are Danielle, who is worried about what …

Forever, Or A Long, Long Time, Taylor Harris

Children's Book and Media Review

After living most of their life in the foster care system, Flora and Julian are still dealing with the trauma. Though they’d been adopted by a wonderful lady two years earlier, when they find out she is having a baby, they worry that there will not be enough love to go around. Julian used to hide food in his closet, while Flora would stop talking because her words got stuck. These problems had been getting better, but once they found out about the baby, they started occurring more regularly again. To help them work through the trauma of their early …

Lunchtime Experiences And Students' Sense Of Belonging In Middle School, Anna Elisabeth Hinton

Theses and Dissertations

We know that it is important that students feel a sense of belonging in school, but additional research is needed to better understand the influences on belonging, especially for junior high and middle school students. Junior high lunchtime is an ideal space to study as a potential influence on belonging because it is a central part of the secondary school experience and it is a social space for students. The purpose of this study is to connect lunchtime experiences to school belonging by showing that how students experience lunchtime and how this affects their overall sense of belonging in school.Descriptive …

Friendship And Language: How Kindergarteners Talk About Making Friends In A Two-Way Immersion School, Sionelle Nicole Beller

Theses and Dissertations

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 …

Friendship And Language: How Kindergarteners Talk About Making Friends In A Two-Way Immersion School, Sionelle Nicole Beller

Theses and Dissertations

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 …