Building Student Belonging in Higher Education: Perspectives on Driving and Developing Change

Given the explosion of interest in student belonging across the sector, there couldn’t be a better time for an edited collection like this to help university leaders make sense of how to embed belonging within their institutional strategies. [Insert book title] achieves a thoughtful balance between the theoretical and practical; allowing readers to quickly get to terms with the messy concepts surrounding belonging in higher education, and then knowing what they can meaningfully do about it. Chapters are filled with tangible recommendations for practice, whilst also not shying away from discussion on the underlying challenges and lessons learned. It’s also wonderful to see how multiple chapters in the book are drawing from collaborative sector conversations about belonging. For example, Chapter 3 from Jo Divers talks about how they learned about the listening rooms methodology from the Advance HE Building Belonging programme, which provided them with an innovative qualitative approach to assess students’ experiences of block teaching. The book from introduction to conclusion neatly captures the challenges that we’re all facing together as a higher education sector, and shows how collaborative work is helping us move forward.

Dr David Gilani, Head of Student Engagement and Advocacy, Middlesex University

This book draws together evidence and best practice from across the Higher Education sector, on how to positively influence a student’s sense of belonging. This book comes at a time of significant change and turmoil for the Higher Education sector and being able to draw on collective expertise on supporting student belonging, will be essential to successful student retention campaigns.

With chapter contributions from many leading academics, this book discusses a variety of strategies that can be used to support specific groups of students, many of whom are underrepresented within High Education This book will be valuable reading for anyone looking to develop stronger belonging interventions for their students.

Dr Kelly Edmunds, University of East Anglia

Building Student Belonging in Higher Education will be of interest to academics and researchers seeking practical guidance and examples to inform their own practices, and students interested in understanding the concept of belonging and its implications for their educational experiences.

• | Author: Kate Strudwick, Kirsty A. Miller
• | Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• | Publication Date: Dec 01, 2025
• | Number of Pages:
• | Language:
• | Binding: Paperback / softback
• | ISBN-13: 9781805922452
• | ISBN-10: 1805922459