RUME 27
2025
Alexandria, Virginia
Female Minoritized Students’ Sense of Belonging in College Algebra and Precalculus Classrooms at a Diverse Minority Serving Institution
Page: 1034
Sense of belonging is an essential factor in supporting student success in undergraduate STEM courses. Female minoritized students, in particular, are less likely to report feeling a sense of belonging due to experiences of isolation, bias, racial and gender microaggressions, and stereotype threat. Although researchers have investigated sense of belonging at the campus or department level at PWIs, HBCUs, and research institutions, less is known about students’ mathematics classroom belonging at open-access, racially diverse institutions. In this report, I present the preliminary qualitative results from a mixed methods study regarding the aspects of classroom experiences that foster sense of belonging for Black and Latina female students in college algebra and precalculus classrooms at a Minority Serving Institution. My qualitative findings indicate that sense of belonging is influenced by mathematical microaffirmations, mathematical microaggressions and mathematics self-efficacy.