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Although higher education has become more accessible to people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, the transition to university is more difficult for first- compared to continuing-generation students. Previous research showed that social identity processes are key to understand differences between first- and continuing-generation students' experiences at university. In the present paper, we argue that social background identity concealment may occur as a coping process among first-generation students. A longitudinal study among 829 first-year university students showed that first-generation students indeed concealed their social background at university more than continuing-generation students. This was especially the case when they had experienced concerns about their social belonging at university, indicating that identity concealment resulted from concerns to fit in at university. Finally, social background concealment was related to a decrease in well-being, suggesting that concealment is a costly social identity management strategy. Instead, universities should put in efforts to increase first-generation students' sense of belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diversity in engineering, and STEM in general, is essential to address societal challenges, yet women and individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds remain underrepresented. Belonging has shown promise for recruiting and retaining these groups, prompting further exploration. This review investigates the impact of (anticipated) belonging on the pursuit and persistence in engineering education among underrepresented groups. Through a systematic literature review, 480 articles from the Scopus database were screened, with 20 articles selected for analysis. Multiple definitions of belonging were revealed, leading the authors to propose a core definition that distinguishes it from closely related concepts like identity alignment and social support. Additionally, a complex network of concepts affecting the relationship between belonging and recruitment/retention emerged, including social capital, engineering identity, self-efficacy, and academic experience and representation. The authors present a simplified conceptual model capturing the role of belonging in the recruitment and retention of underrepresented students in engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite equal rights, minority groups such as ethnic minorities, LGBTQ + people, and people with mental or physical disabilities face discrimination on a day‐to‐day basis in subtle and hard‐to‐recognize forms. As discrimination slips beneath the surface, it becomes difficult to fight the stigma using collective social identity coping mechanisms. Instead, individual mobility responses such as distancing the self from the stigmatized identity ("self‐group distancing") become more viable as a way to improve one's individual standing. In this overview of the state of the art, we take a social identity lens to reflect on the current empirical knowledge base on self‐group distancing as a coping mechanism and provide a framework on what self‐group distancing is; when, where and why self‐group distancing likely occurs; and what its consequences are at the individual and the collective level. The contributions in this special issue provide novel insights into how these processes unfold, and serve as a basis to set a future research agenda, for example on what can be done to prevent self‐group distancing (i.e., interventions). Together, the insights highlight that while self‐group distancing may seem effective to (strategically and temporarily) alleviate discomfort or to improve one's own position, on a broader collective level and over time self‐group distancing tends to keep the current unequal social hierarchy in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First-generation students show lower academic performance at university compared to continuing-generation students. Previous research established the value in taking a social identity perspective on this social-class achievement gap, and showed that the gap can partly be explained by lower compatibility between social background and university identities that first- compared to continuing-generation students experience. The present paper aimed to increase insight into the processes through which this low identity compatibility leads to lower academic achievement by examining first-year university students' adjustment to university in two key domains: the academic and the social domain. These were examined as two routes through which the social-class achievement gap may arise, and hence perpetuate this group-based inequality. Adjustment was examined both through students' actual integration in the academic and social domains, and their internally experienced concerns about these domains at university. A longitudinal study among 674 first-year university students (13.6% first-generation) showed that first-generation students experienced lower identity compatibility in their first semester, which was in turn related to lower social, but not academic, integration. Lower identity compatibility was also related to more concerns about the social and academic domains at university. Low identity compatibility was directly related to lower academic achievement 1 year later, and this relationship was mediated only by lower social integration at university. These findings show that to understand, and hence reduce, the social-class achievement gap, it is important to examine how low identity compatibility can create difficulties in academic and particularly social adjustment at university with consequences for achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]