Peer Tutoring and the Identity of Belonging

A study was conducted considering a mathematics learning center as a figured world, that is, as a social space that is treated as if individuals within the space share certain meanings about the space and interactions within it (Holland et al., 1998) from the perspective of the undergraduate peer tutors employed in it (for the larger study, see Bjorkman, 2019). An emergent theme in the collected data was that of "the club" or a sense of group membership and identity that focused on tutors' mathematical abilities, helpfulness to others, being STEM majors, and the tutoring center. The focus of this article is on how tutoring, in this instance, showed benefits in the areas of positive subject-matter identities and a sense of belonging that has been shown as beneficial for student outcomes (Cribbs et al., 2015; Solomon, 2007). How undergraduate tutoring programs can potentially be leveraged as beneficial not only for the tutees - but also for the tutors - is discussed.