From Inclusion to Institutional Practice: Predictors of Belonging in Arts and Design Education

Suggested Citation: Martin, N. D., Folk, C. M., Miller, A., & Dowd, T. J. (2026). From Inclusion to Institutional Practice: Predictors of Belonging in Arts and Design Education, Strategic National Arts Alumni Project Report. Austin, TX: Arts + Design Alumni Research, SNAAP.

SNAAP is supported by Arts + Design Alumni Research, the nonprofit that oversees the management of SNAAP, and its institutional partnership with the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Fine Arts.

SNAAP’s 2022 survey administration was made possible by the dedicated efforts of the SNAAP staff — Lee Ann Scotto Adams, Executive Director; Deanna Ibrahim, former Director of Research Services; and Angie L. Miller, Senior Scholar — and through support from The Mellon Foundation, The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and sponsorships supplied by:

• ArtCenter College of Design

• College of Art & Media at University of Colorado Denver

• College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State University

• College of Fine Arts at University of Nevada, Las Vegas

• Eastman School of Music at University of Rochester

• Emerson College

• Herb Alpert School of Music at University of California, Los Angeles

• Indiana University, Bloomington

• Institute of American Indian Arts

• Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts at the University of Houston

• Maryland Institute College of Art

• Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University

• Pratt Institute

• School of the Art Institute of Chicago

• Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts at University of North Carolina School of the Arts

• Tyler School of Art & Architecture at Temple University

• University of Southern California

• Yale University

Questions? Email: info@snaaparts.org

A sense of belonging – the feeling of being accepted, respected, valued, and supported within an educational environment – is central to student success, institutional connection, and long-term alumni engagement. In arts and design education, belonging carries particular importance because students are often asked to share creative work that is closely tied to identity, culture, personal experience, and future aspirations. This second SNAAP Sense of Belonging report builds on the first report by examining which institutional characteristics, demographic factors, socioeconomic conditions, and college experiences predict stronger belonging among arts and design alumni.

Drawing on the 2022 Strategic National Arts Alumni Project survey, this analysis focuses on undergraduate arts alumni age 64 or younger, and it measures how often alumni felt respected, valued, and treated fairly by instructors, faculty, and classmates while enrolled. The findings show that belonging is both unevenly distributed and institutionally shaped. Alumni from more advantaged backgrounds – including White alumni, cisgender alumni, alumni with at least one college-graduate parent, and alumni who did not take out loans – reported stronger belonging even after accounting for institutional context, field of study, and college experiences.

The analysis also points to concrete opportunities for institutional action. In-college experiences, especially diversity-related curricular experiences and selected high-impact practices, were among the strongest predictors of belonging. Alumni who encountered diversity-rich educational environments, completed portfolios, participated in internships or apprenticeships, or worked on community-based creative projects reported stronger belonging. These findings suggest that belonging is not fixed by student background alone. It can be strengthened through intentional curriculum, pedagogy, mentorship, professional preparation, and equitable access to meaningful creative participation.

HIGHLIGHTS

Belonging Is Shaped By Both Background And Institutional Practice

• Alumni from more advantaged backgrounds reported significantly stronger sense of belonging, including White alumni, cisgender alumni, alumni with at least one college-graduate parent, and alumni who did not take out loans for college.

• These findings suggest that social identity and socioeconomic background continue to shape how arts alumni remember experiences of respect, value, and fair treatment during college.

• The strongest predictors of belonging were tied to educational experiences that institutions can more directly shape, especially diversity-related curricular experiences and selected high-impact practices.

INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXT MATTERS, BUT FIELD OF STUDY IS LESS CONSISTENT

• Alumni from institutions that offer masters/baccalaureate degrees reported a significantly stronger sense of belonging than alumni from institutions offering doctoral degrees.

• Attending an institution with an enrollment of 10,000 or more students also had a significant positive association with belonging.

• Major field of study showed a weaker and less consistent pattern, suggesting that belonging may be shaped more by local climate, relationships, pedagogy, and program practices than by broad artistic field alone.

HIGH-IMPACT PRACTICES SUPPORT BELONGING

• Alumni who worked on a community project, completed a portfolio, or completed an internship or apprenticeship reported significantly stronger sense of belonging.

• These experiences may help students build relationships, connect creative work to public and professional contexts, and see themselves as active participants in broader artistic communities.

• The findings suggest that arts and design institutions should treat community projects, portfolio development, internships, and apprenticeships as belonging-building learning experiences, while ensuring that these opportunities are equitably structured and accessible.

DIVERSITY EXPERIENCES ARE THE STRONGEST PREDICTOR OF BELONGING

• Of all variables included in the analysis, the campus diversity experiences measure was most strongly associated with sense of belonging. A one standard-deviation increase in diversity experiences predicted a one-quarter standard deviation increase in belonging, holding other factors equal.

• Diversity-related curricular experiences included learning about creative works from diverse cultures, learning from diverse faculty and guest speakers, and engaging with racial justice or social equity in coursework.

• These findings suggest that diversity-related learning should be understood as part of the core educational infrastructure of arts and design programs, rather than as optional enrichment or isolated curricular content.

DIVERSITY-RICH ENVIRONMENTS MAY HELP REDUCE RACIAL BELONGING GAPS

• More frequent diversity experiences predicted stronger belonging for alumni of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, but the positive association was significantly stronger for non-white alumni.

• At low levels of diversity experiences, White alumni reported significantly higher belonging than Black, Latino, and Asian alumni.

• At high levels of diversity-related curricular experiences, racial and ethnic differences in belonging were no longer statistically significant, suggesting that diversity-rich learning environments may help reduce racial belonging gaps.

BELONGING EXTENDS BEYOND GRADUATION

• Sense of belonging was positively associated with whether alumni would recommend their institution to another student like themselves, how connected they felt to their institution, and their overall satisfaction with institutional opportunities.

• These findings suggest that belonging shapes how alumni evaluate their education after graduation and may influence long-term institutional relationships.

• For arts and design institutions, strengthening belonging may support not only student experience, but also alumni connection, advocacy, reputation, and continued engagement.

A strong sense of belonging shapes how students experience higher education. Feeling that one belongs is more than an emotional state. In fact, foundational theories describe ​“belonging” as a basic human need and as a condition that spurs the motivation, engagement, and development of individuals (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Goodenow, 1992). Students are more likely to thrive when they have a strong sense of belonging and feel more accepted, respected, valued, and supported within their academic communities, which in turn is positively associated with student persistence, academic motivation, well-being, and satisfaction with college experiences (Ahn & Davis, 2023; Allen et al., 2024; Strayhorn, 2018). Higher education research also shows that individual students’ sense of belonging is shaped by their connections with others – namely, their respective relationships with faculty, peers, and campus communities; these relationships play a pivotal role in whether students see themselves as full members of a higher education institution (Tinto, 1997).

Arts and design education provides a distinctive context for studying sense of belonging. Creative training often asks students to share highly personal material so that others may offer review and comment. Hence, arts and design students make personal ideas, identities, histories, and aesthetic commitments visible to others through studio critiques, performances, exhibitions, design reviews, ensemble work, and portfolio development. These experiences can promote inclusion, affirming students when their creative voices are recognized and taken seriously. Yet, these experiences can also heighten exclusion when students perceive that their identities, cultural backgrounds, or artistic perspectives are misunderstood or marginalized. Prior research on arts learning suggests that individual students’ sense of belonging is shaped by others in their higher education institution. Creative identity, peer community, critique culture (e.g., when intense scrutiny of creative work is valued), and perceptions of legitimacy (i.e., who and/or what is considered worthy of attention) all contribute to whether students feel that they belong within artistic and academic communities (Long & McLaren, 2024; Stachler, 2023; Stickley, 2010).

The first SNAAP Sense of Belonging report examined alumni experiences of respect, value, differential treatment, accessibility, and exposure to diversity and community engagement – documenting both broadly supportive educational environments and meaningful inequities across alumni groups (Folk et al., 2026). This second report extends that work by analyzing which institutional characteristics, demographic factors, socioeconomic conditions, and college experiences predict a stronger sense of belonging among arts and design alumni. Using data from the 2022 Strategic National Arts Alumni Project survey, the analysis focuses on undergraduate arts alumni age 64 or younger, and it measures belonging through a six-item scale capturing how often alumni felt respected, valued, and treated fairly by instructors, faculty, and classmates while enrolled. By identifying the factors associated with belonging, we consider how arts and design institutions can create educational environments where more students experience recognition, connection, and support.

Conceptualizing Belonging in Higher Education

Belonging is widely understood as a student’s sense of being accepted, respected, valued, and supported within an educational community. Although the concept is often discussed as an individual feeling, higher education research has long emphasized that belonging develops through students’ relationships, environments, and opportunities for meaningful participation. Foundational psychological research describes the need to belong as a basic human motivation, one that shapes well-being, behavior, and social connection (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In educational settings, belonging is closely tied to motivation and engagement because students are more likely to invest in learning when they feel recognized as legitimate members of the school or college community (Goodenow, 1992).

Within higher education, one stream of research has examined belonging through the lens of academic and social integration. Tinto’s (1997) work on classrooms as communities emphasizes that student persistence is shaped by the quality of students’ academic and social connections, particularly the relationships formed through shared learning environments. Strayhorn (2018) similarly describes belonging as a core condition for student success, arguing that students’ sense of connection to campus communities can influence academic confidence, persistence, and well-being. More recent reviews extend this perspective by treating belonging as a multidimensional construct shaped by interpersonal relationships, institutional climate, identity, pedagogy, and broader systems of support (Allen et al., 2024).

Another stream of research has examined belonging by focusing on the home life and background of respective students. Originating with the French scholarship of Bourdieu (1984, 1986; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1979), and then spreading to the United States, researchers emphasize that middle and upper class students experience a familiar environment at educational institutions: schools, colleges, and universities value the same traits displayed in middle and upper class homes of white Americans (e.g., treating teachers/professors as collaborators rather than as distant authorities) and the language of the curriculum and educational bureaucracy is comparable to the language used in those homes, as well. Hence, students from advantaged backgrounds are more likely to feel ​“at ease” (rather than as ​“imposters”) in higher education institutions than are working-class and low-income students (Jack, 2016; Wei, 2026). Meanwhile, working class students and some students of color confront valued traits and language in educational settings that differ from that of their homes of origin. Not only does this require some ​“catching up” on the part of those students as they learn to navigate such a new environment, but it may also lead to a sense of not belonging (e.g., Axxe et al., 2025; Jack & Black, 2024; Richards, 2022). 

This broader view offered by both streams is crucial because belonging is not distributed evenly across student populations. Students’ ability to feel at home within higher education is shaped by whether institutions recognize their identities, experiences, and ways of knowing. Research on campus racial climate, culturally responsive pedagogy, and diverse learning environments shows that students from historically marginalized groups often encounter institutional conditions that limit belonging, even when they are formally included within the institution (Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Hurtado et al., 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1995). These studies suggest that belonging depends on more than access to higher education; it also depends on whether students experience the curriculum, climate, and relationships of higher education as affirming and responsive.

Recent scholarship also emphasizes that belonging can change over time and can be shaped by institutional practice. Longitudinal research shows that students’ sense of belonging is responsive to educational environments and may shift as students encounter new academic, social, and institutional contexts (Crawford et al., 2024). Studies of transition into higher education similarly show that early relationships with peers and faculty can help students develop confidence and connection during periods of uncertainty (Meehan & Howells, 2019). This literature positions belonging as a meaningful indicator of student experience and institutional quality. For the purposes of this report, belonging is understood as a measurable outcome shaped by both students’ background characteristics and the educational environments that higher education institutions create.

Conditions That Support Belonging

Research on belonging increasingly points to the conditions that help students develop stronger connections to their institutions, programs, and peers. Belonging tends to grow when students experience supportive relationships, inclusive classroom climates, meaningful academic engagement, and opportunities to participate in the intellectual and social life of their fields (Allen et al., 2024; Strayhorn, 2018; Tinto, 1997). Faculty and peer relationships are especially important because students often come to understand whether they belong through everyday interactions with instructors, classmates, and mentors. Studies of low-income and first-generation (i.e., neither parent has a college degree) students show that institutional support, meaningful relationships, and feelings of mattering can help students navigate uncertainty and develop a stronger sense of place in college (Cole et al., 2020; Dueñas & Gloria, 2020; Means & Pyne, 2017; Museus & Chang, 2021; Richards, 2022).

Institutional climate and curricular design also influence belonging. Students are more likely to feel connected when learning environments affirm their identities, recognize their experiences, and make space for multiple ways of knowing (Hurtado et al., 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1995). Culturally responsive pedagogy supports belonging by treating students’ cultural backgrounds and lived experiences as assets within the learning process (Axxe et al., 2025; Ladson-Billings, 1995). Diverse learning environments can also strengthen belonging when diversity is reflected in course content, faculty representation, classroom dialogue, and institutional norms (Hurtado et al., 2015). These conditions are especially important for students from historically marginalized groups, who may otherwise experience higher education as a space where their identities or perspectives are underrepresented (Jack & Black, 2024; Axxe et al., 2025).

First-generation students and students with greater financial strain may face barriers such as limited access to informal institutional knowledge, heavier work obligations, loan burden, or uncertainty about how to navigate college expectations (Ahn & Davis, 2023; Means & Pyne, 2017; Museus & Chang, 2021). Research on first-generation college students shows that belonging is often tied to whether students perceive support from their higher education institutions as accessible, trustworthy, and responsive to their circumstances (Means & Pyne, 2017; Takimoto et al., 2021). First-generation students have a stronger sense of belonging when they are supported, challenged, and recognized through both relationships and institutional practice (Axxe et al, 2025; Hurst et al., 2024; Jack & Black, 2025; Richards, 2022).

Belonging, Recognition, and Unequal Access

Students are more likely to feel that they belong when their identities, experiences, and contributions are treated as legitimate parts of the academic community. Research on racially and ethnically minoritized students shows that belonging is shaped by campus climate, faculty relationships, peer interactions, and whether institutional environments affirm students’ full humanity and academic potential (Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Hurtado et al., 2015). When students encounter curricula, classrooms, or campus cultures that center dominant norms while marginalizing other histories and ways of knowing, they may experience formal access to higher education without a full sense of institutional membership.

Students’ sense of belonging is also shaped by intersecting social identities. First-generation, low-income, working-class, racially minoritized, and gender-diverse students often navigate institutions whose expectations were not designed around their experiences (Bettencourt, 2021; Means & Pyne, 2017; Museus & Chang, 2021; Nguyen & Nguyen, 2018). Research on nonbinary and transgender students, for example, links belonging to campus climate and minority stress, showing how institutional environments organized around binary gender norms can weaken students’ sense of safety and connection whereas curricula and cocurricular support services can strengthen students’ sense of belonging (Budge et al., 2020; Garvey et al., 2019). Similarly, studies of first-generation students suggest that a sense of belonging is influenced by access to information, supportive relationships, and whether students perceive their backgrounds as valued rather than treated as deficits (Means & Pyne, 2017; Museus & Chang, 2021; Takimoto et al., 2021). These patterns point to belonging as a broader equity issue, not just as a student experience measure. 

The higher education environment shapes belonging through the norms, practices, and relationships that communicate who is expected to be present, whose knowledge is valued, and whose success is actively supported. Research on diverse learning environments and culturally responsive pedagogy emphasizes that inclusion requires more than numerical representation; it also requires institutional practices that validate students’ identities and expand the range of experiences treated as meaningful within academic life (Hurtado et al., 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1995). This report adds to this perspective by examining whether belonging varies by race, gender identity, first-generation status, and loan burden while also considering the college experiences that may strengthen students’ sense of recognition and membership.

Belonging Through Participation: High-Impact Practices in the Arts

Belonging also develops through participation in the shared practices of a field. In higher education, high-impact practices such as internships, service learning, community-based projects, and culminating projects can deepen students’ engagement by connecting classroom learning to applied, collaborative, and professionally relevant experiences (Frenette, 2026; Kuh, 2008; Tinto, 1997; Wenger, 1998). In the arts, these practices take discipline-specific forms. Portfolios, internships, apprenticeships, work with community artists, and creative projects serving local communities give students opportunities to test their skills, receive feedback, build relationships, and see their work circulate beyond the classroom. These experiences can aid students in understanding themselves as emerging artists, designers, performers, and creative professionals.

Arts-specific research suggests that high-impact practices are associated with a range of college, career, and community engagement outcomes. Engagement in the arts by US students is associated with success on standardized tests and with successful transitions to higher education enrollment and graduation (Aschaffenburg & Maas, 1997; Byun, Schofer & Kim, 2012; Lu, 2013). Miller, Martin, and Frenette (2022) found that practices such as internships, community service, study abroad, and portfolio completion can contribute to arts alumni outcomes, while Hwang and Kim (2022) found that arts-based high-impact practices are linked to post-college community engagement. Community-based arts education also allows students to connect creative work with public purpose, civic relationships, and local cultural life (Blatt-Gross, 2023). Both internships and work-integrated learning help students move between educational and professional communities, a transition that can be especially consequential in creative fields where career pathways are often nonlinear and relationship-based (Briant & Crowther, 2020; Goodwin & Vincent, 2024).

In the context of this report, high-impact practices offer a way to understand belonging as something strengthened through active membership. Arts and design students may feel more connected to their programs when they have opportunities to produce work for real audiences, collaborate with peers and professionals, participate in community-based projects, and assemble portfolios that represent their developing creative identities. These experiences communicate that students’ work has value, that their creative growth is visible, and that they have a place within broader artistic and professional communities.

Diversity Experiences and the Belonging Gap

Diversity experiences are a key pathway through which institutions can strengthen belonging and reduce gaps across student groups. Research on diverse learning environments shows that students’ sense of belonging is shaped by more than the demographic composition of a campus, but whether diversity is reflected in curricula, pedagogy, faculty representation, classroom dialogue, and institutional norms (Hurtado et al., 2015). Culturally responsive and culturally engaging educational environments can support belonging by affirming students’ identities, connecting learning to lived experience, and recognizing a wider range of cultural knowledge as academically meaningful (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Museus et al., 2017, 2018). These practices can be especially transformative for students from historically marginalized groups, whose identities and perspectives are not reflected in traditional academic settings.

In arts and design education, diversity experiences carry additional importance because creative work is closely tied to identity, culture, history, and representation. When students encounter creative works from diverse cultures, learn from faculty and visiting artists with diverse identities, and engage with racial justice or social equity in their coursework, they receive broader signals about whose artistic traditions and perspectives matter. Arts-specific research suggests that culturally engaging campus environments can shape whether design and arts students feel that their identities and creative practices are recognized within their programs (Stachler, 2023). Recent work in art education also emphasizes belonging-oriented pedagogy, culturally sustaining approaches, and anti-racist arts practices as ways to help students connect identity, difference, and creative learning.

This literature provides a key context for the SNAAP analysis, which examines diversity experiences as a predictor of alumni sense of belonging. If belonging depends partly on recognition, then diversity-rich learning environments may help close belonging gaps by expanding the range of identities, histories, and creative traditions treated as central to arts education. These experiences may benefit all students by deepening cultural awareness and preparing them for pluralistic creative fields, while carrying particular importance for students whose communities have historically been marginalized or underrepresented in curricula, faculty representation, and institutional culture.

Belonging After Graduation

Belonging has consequences that extend beyond students’ time on campus. Higher education research links belonging to persistence, motivation, enjoyment, satisfaction, and students’ broader attachment to their institutions (Ahn & Davis, 2023; Crawford et al., 2024; Pedler et al., 2022; Strayhorn, 2018). When students feel connected to their academic communities, they are more likely to interpret their educational experiences as meaningful and supportive. This connection can shape how they evaluate their institution after leaving, including whether they feel satisfied with their opportunities, whether they maintain a sense of institutional connection, and whether they would recommend the institution to others.

Alumni research further suggests that belonging can influence graduates’ long-term relationships with their colleges and universities. Studies of alumni engagement show that sense of belonging is associated with continued institutional connection and greater willingness to financially support or advocate for one’s institution (Drezner & Pizmony-Levy, 2021). Related work on organizational identification and emotional attachment indicates that college students and graduates who feel identified with their institutions are more likely to express satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth recommendations (Al Hassani & Wilkins, 2022). Alumni donations often play a huge role in university funding strategies, and these donations can in turn improve university reputation (Faria et al., 2019), so fostering belonging goes beyond academic and psychosocial outcomes. These outcomes matter for institutions because alumni relationships often shape reputation, recruitment, mentoring networks, philanthropy, and public trust.

For arts and design institutions, post-graduation belonging may carry particular importance. Creative fields often depend on networks, collaborations, mentorship, and ongoing ties to artistic communities (Dowd & Park, 2024; Martin, Frenette & Gualtieri, 2023). Alumni who felt recognized and supported during their education may be more likely to remain connected to their programs, recommend them to future students, and view their education as a meaningful foundation for creative and professional life. In this report, belonging is therefore examined as both a measure of alumni educational experience and a predictor of institutional satisfaction, connection, and recommendation after graduation.

Higher education institutions can take a number of steps to promote a sense of belonging among a wide swath of their students, but not all institutions are equally adept at taking those steps. Indeed, higher education research emphasizes that various institutional characteristics play a role in those differences but, yet, those characteristics can work in countervailing ways. Large universities can provide many opportunities for belonging via their expansive curricular, co-curricular, and extra-curricular programs, but working-class students may be more likely to form mentoring relationships at small colleges than at large universities (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013; Scherer, 2020). Elite research universities may foster a strong sense of comradery among their students, including first-generation students of color who studied at elite high schools, but those same institutions may also prove alienating for first-generation students of color who attended disadvantaged high schools (Binder & Abel, 2019; Jack, 2016). Some majors may attract working-class students given linkages to employment opportunities, such as STEM majors, but those same majors may not provide a welcoming climate for women students and immigrant students of color (Cohen et al, 2026; Rendón et al, 2025). Rather than offer specific hypotheses about these institutional characteristics, then, we acknowledge their potential influence by statistically controlling for them in the analysis that follows.

Purpose

Overall, prior research shows that students’ sense of belonging is shaped by both structural inequalities and educational experiences, and is influenced by faculty and peer relationships, institutional climate, socioeconomic background, culturally responsive learning environments, and opportunities for meaningful participation. For arts and design students, these dynamics may be especially consequential because creative training often requires students to make their identities, ideas, and artistic commitments visible through critique, collaboration, public presentation, portfolio development, and professional practice.

This second sense of belonging report builds on that literature by examining predictors of sense of belonging among undergraduate arts and design alumni using data from the 2022 Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) survey. We consider institutional characteristics, major field of study, demographic background, socioeconomic background, participation in high-impact practices, and exposure to diversity experiences. Sense of belonging is measured through a six-item scale capturing how often alumni felt respected, valued, and treated fairly by instructors, faculty, and classmates while enrolled.

By examining these factors together, we identify which characteristics and experiences predict stronger sense of belonging among arts alumni. This approach allows the analysis to consider where gaps persist and where institutions may have the greatest opportunity to act. In particular, the report builds on the descriptive findings from the first SNAAP Sense of Belonging Report, attending to whether diversity-related curricular experiences and arts-based high-impact practices are associated with stronger belonging, and whether these experiences may help explain differences across alumni groups.

Analysis

To identify background and college factors predictive of a greater sense of belonging, we conducted an analysis of the 2022 Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) survey data. Our analysis focuses on undergraduate arts alumni who were 64 years or younger at the time of the survey. The number of alumni per institution in our sample ranged from 22 to 1,071, with a mean of 184.3 alumni per institution. Our use of a large, diverse sample of arts alumni enhances the statistical power necessary to detect subtle relationships across a range of arts programs and institutional types.

The primary construct, sense of belonging, was measured using a scale of six items (alpha = 0.84). This scale reflects the mean response (1 = never to 4 = often) to questions about how often arts alumni felt respected, valued, or treated fairly by instructors, faculty, and classmates while enrolled (See Table 1 for sense of belonging items)

First, we consider how sense of belonging is associated with background variables and institutional characteristics such as research classification (American Council on Education, n.d.) and total student enrollment, alumni’s major field of study, and demographic characteristics. Major field of study includes performing arts, fine and studio arts, design/architecture, media arts, or other arts and design fields. Demographic characteristics include age, gender identity, and race/ethnicity. Additionally, we measure alumni’s socioeconomic background with variables describing status as a first-generation college student and the amount of loans used to finance their postsecondary education. Including these measures allows us to consider whether belonging differs across institutional contexts, fields of study, demographic groups, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

College factors in our analysis include measures describing participation as a student in high-impact practices (HIPs), such as working with an artist in the community, working on a community creative project, completing a portfolio, and completing an internship/apprenticeship. These measures capture educational experiences that may connect students to creative practice, professional preparation, and broader artistic communities. We also use a new scale for diversity-related curricular experiences (alpha = 0.86) based on five items describing the extent to which alumni reported learning about creative works from diverse cultures, from diverse faculty and guest speakers, and learning about racial justice or social equity as part of their coursework. (See Table 2 for diversity and institutional satisfaction items on the 2022 SNAAP Survey). This scale captures the degree to which alumni encountered diversity-related learning experiences within their arts education.

Limitations

Several limitations should be considered when interpreting these findings. The analysis is based on observational survey data, so the results identify associations between alumni characteristics, institutional contexts, college experiences, and sense of belonging rather than causal effects. Because alumni reported retrospectively on their educational experiences, responses may also be shaped by recall, time since graduation, and subsequent personal or professional experiences. The sense of belonging scale captures alumni perceptions of respect, value, and fair treatment by faculty and classmates, but it does not capture every dimension of belonging, such as informal peer networks, departmental climate, accessibility experiences, or belonging within specific artistic subfields. Finally, although the analysis includes a broad set of institutional, demographic, socioeconomic, and college-experience measures, unmeasured factors may also shape alumni belonging

Our analysis reveals several institutional and background characteristics that are significantly (p < .05) associated with sense of belonging. More specifically, alumni from masters/baccalaureate institutions report a significantly stronger sense of belonging than alumni from doctoral institutions, while attending an institution with large student enrollments of 10,000 or more students has a significant, positive net association with sense of belonging. These findings suggest that institutional context matters, although the analysis does not identify the specific features of institutional type or size that may account for these differences. In contrast, major field of study shows a weaker and less consistent pattern of associations, suggesting that belonging may be shaped less by artistic field alone than by the relationships, climates, and educational experiences students encounter within their programs.

Additionally, we found that broader social inequities are reflected in college experiences, as alumni from more advantaged backgrounds are more likely to report a strong sense of belonging. Holding other variables constant, we find significantly higher levels of sense of belonging were observed among White alumni, cisgender alumni in comparison to nonbinary alumni, alumni with at least one college-graduate parent in comparison to first-generation alumni, and alumni who did not take out any loans for college. These findings indicate that belonging remains unevenly distributed even after accounting for institutional characteristics, field of study, and college experiences. They also suggest that social identity and socioeconomic background continue to shape alumni perceptions of respect, value, and fair treatment during college.

We also determined that older alumni and alumni who had graduated more than five years prior to the survey report a significantly stronger sense of belonging. These results could reflect a positive recall bias or the filtering out of negative memories over time, as well as generational shift in perceptions and reports of the campus environment. Because the analysis is retrospective, these patterns should be interpreted cautiously. Alumni from different cohorts may have experienced different campus climates, or they may evaluate belonging and inclusion through different expectations shaped by time and social context.

Overall, our analysis shows that in-college activities and experiences are more strongly associated with sense of belonging compared to institutional and background characteristics. (See Figure 1) In particular, alumni who worked on a community project, completed a portfolio or completed an internship or apprenticeship report a significantly stronger sense of belonging. These activities may provide students with opportunities to build relationships, connect creative work to public or professional contexts, and see themselves as active participants in broader artistic communities. For arts and design students, these experiences may be especially meaningful because they link creative identity with practice, audience, and professional preparation.

Of all variables included in the analysis, the diversity-related learning experiences scale is most strongly associated with sense of belonging (see Figure 2). A one standard-deviation increase in this scale predicts a one-quarter standard deviation increase in sense of belonging, with other factors being equal. This finding suggests that diversity-related curricular experiences are strongly connected to whether alumni felt respected, valued, and fairly treated while enrolled. It also indicates that diversity-related learning should be understood as part of the educational conditions that shape belonging, rather than as a separate or peripheral component of arts education.

Furthermore, we find that while more frequent diversity-related curricular experiences predict a stronger sense of belonging for alumni of all racial/ethnic backgrounds, the positive association is significantly stronger for non-White alumni (see figure 3). This interaction effect suggests that campus diversity experiences help explain differences in the sense of belonging gap observed by race/ethnicity. At low levels of diversity experiences, White alumni report significantly higher levels of sense of belonging compared to Black, Latino, and Asian alumni. However, the analysis shows that there are not significant differences by race/ethnicity at high levels of diversity-related curricular experiences. One explanation may be that diversity-rich educational environments help to reduce racial belonging gaps by expanding the range of identities, cultures, and creative traditions represented within arts education.

Prior work has identified a strong sense of belonging as fundamental to student success, correlating positively with increased academic motivation, persistence, and overall mental health and well-being. Our analysis shows that sense of belonging stands out as a particularly strong predictor across different measures of institutional satisfaction (see Figure 4). Net of the influence of other variables, sense of belonging has a significant, positive association with whether alumni would recommend their institution to another student like themselves, the extent to which alumni feel connected to their institution, and general satisfaction with opportunities available at their institution. These findings suggest that belonging has implications beyond students’ time on campus, shaping how alumni evaluate their education and maintain relationships with their institutions after graduation.

The findings from this report reinforce belonging as a pattern shaped by institutional environments, educational experiences, and broader social inequalities. Higher education research has long linked belonging to persistence, motivation, well-being, and satisfaction, while also emphasizing that students develop belonging through relationships, climate, and opportunities for meaningful participation (Allen et al., 2024; Strayhorn, 2018; Tinto, 1997). The first SNAAP Sense of Belonging report showed that many arts and design alumni recalled feeling respected and valued during their education, while also documenting meaningful differences across race, gender identity, accessibility experiences, and workplace contexts. This second report extends that work by examining which factors are associated with stronger overall belonging among arts alumni. The results suggest that belonging reflects the conditions students encounter while enrolled: the institutional settings they enter, the resources available to them, the relationships they form, and the educational experiences through which they participate in creative communities.

A central contribution of this analysis is to show that a sense of belonging is influenced by both background characteristics and college experiences. Alumni from more advantaged backgrounds reported stronger belonging, echoing prior research showing that belonging in higher education is stratified by race, class, gender identity, and campus climate (Axxe et al. 2025; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Hurtado et al., 2015; Jack & Black, 2024; Museus & Chang, 2021). At the same time, the strongest associations in the model were connected to experiences that institutions can more directly shape by promoting more opportunities to engage with diversity and participate in high-impact practices, such as community projects, portfolio completion, and internships or apprenticeships. In this way, the findings align with research that treats belonging as responsive to institutional practice, rather than fixed by student background alone (Allen et al., 2024; Crawford et al., 2024; Means & Pyne, 2017).

For arts and design programs, these findings carry particular relevance. Creative education often asks students to share work that is closely tied to identity, culture, personal experience, and future aspirations. Prior research suggests that arts students’ belonging is shaped by creative identity, critique culture, representation, and perceptions of legitimacy within artistic communities (Long & McLaren, 2024; Stachler, 2023; Stickley, 2010). Results highlighted in this report indicate that belonging is strengthened when students encounter educational environments that recognize diverse creative traditions, connect learning to community and professional practice, and provide opportunities to see their work as meaningful within and beyond the institution. In this sense, belonging functions as an indicator of how well arts and design programs support students as emerging members of creative fields.

The results also determine that belonging remains unevenly distributed across alumni groups, which aligns with the descriptive findings featured in the first SNAAP Sense of Belonging report (Folk et al., 2026). Holding other factors constant, a stronger sense of belonging was associated with being White, cisgender, having at least one college-graduate parent, and not taking out loans to finance postsecondary education. These patterns are consistent with a broad body of higher education research showing that belonging is shaped by campus climate, social identity, socioeconomic resources, and access to institutional support (Ahn & Davis, 2023; Hurtado & Carter, 1997; Hurtado et al., 2015; Museus & Chang, 2021). The patterns are also consistent with Bourdieu-inspired research showing that advantages accrue to those whose home and secondary-education environment closely match the educational environment encountered on campuses – an environment in which middle/upper class styles of comportment and communication are commonplace (Jack & Black, 2024; Rivera, 2016; Wei, 2026). The findings help underscore how students from different backgrounds encounter arts and design institutions under different conditions of recognition, familiarity, and support.

Recognition is especially important for understanding these differences. Students are more likely to feel that they belong when their identities, experiences, and contributions are treated as legitimate parts of the academic community. Research on racially and ethnically minoritized students shows that belonging is weakened when students encounter climates where their identities are underrepresented, stereotyped, or treated as peripheral to institutional norms (Hurtado et al., 2015). Similar dynamics appear in research on first-generation and low-income students, who often navigate institutions where informal expectations, professional norms, and cultural assumptions may be less transparent or less aligned with their prior experiences (Means & Pyne, 2017; Museus & Chang, 2021; Nguyen & Nguyen, 2018). For nonbinary and transgender students, research links belonging to campus climate and minority stress, particularly in environments organized around binary gender assumptions (Budge et al., 2020; Garvey et al., 2019). These bodies of work suggest that belonging depends partly on whether institutions communicate who is expected to be present, whose knowledge matters, and whose success is actively supported.

The association between loan burden and belonging adds another dimension to this pattern. Financial strain can shape students’ educational experiences by limiting time, flexibility, and access to unpaid or resource-intensive opportunities, if not siphoning them away from supposedly ​“non-lucrative” majors (see Cohen et al., 2026). In arts and design programs, these pressures may be especially consequential because students may need materials, equipment, software, travel, unpaid internships, or additional time for portfolio development. Alumni who did not take out loans may have had more freedom to participate in the kinds of educational and professional opportunities that build connections (see Frenette, 2026). This finding reinforces the idea that belonging is shaped by material conditions as well as social relationships. For arts and design institutions, addressing belonging gaps therefore requires attention to recognition, representation, mentorship, and the financial structures that affect students’ ability to participate fully in creative education.

Participation in meaningful creative and professional experiences is one of the clearest pathways through which arts and design institutions can strengthen students’ sense of belonging. Alumni who worked on a community project, completed a portfolio, or completed an internship or apprenticeship reported significantly stronger sense of belonging. These findings align with prior research that shows that applied, collaborative, and integrative learning experiences can deepen student engagement and connection (Tinto, 1997; Kuh, 2008; Wenger, 1998), as well as research showing that internships, community-based projects, portfolio development, and other high-impact practices are associated with college, career, and community engagement outcomes among arts alumni (Hwang & Kim, 2022; Miller et al., 2022).

In arts and design education, participation carries particular weight because students develop belonging through the visible practice of creative work. Community projects allow students to connect artmaking with public purpose, local relationships, and civic life. Portfolio completion gives students an opportunity to synthesize their creative development and present an emerging artistic identity. Internships and apprenticeships help students enter professional networks, learn field expectations, and imagine possible creative futures. These experiences may strengthen belonging because they help students see their work as meaningful to others and connected to communities beyond the classroom. Communities of practice theory provides a useful lens for this pattern: students develop membership in a field by participating in shared practices, receiving feedback, and gradually moving toward fuller participation in a professional or disciplinary community (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998).

The benefits of high-impact practices depend on access and support. However, high-impact practices can also reproduce inequities when they require unpaid labor, expensive materials, flexible schedules, transportation, or informal professional networks (Briant & Crowther, 2020; Miller et al., 2022). For students with financial constraints, caregiving responsibilities, disability-related access needs, or limited professional connections, participation may be harder to secure or sustain. The results therefore suggest that arts and design institutions should treat community projects, portfolios, internships, and apprenticeships as belonging-building experiences while also ensuring that these practices are equitably structured, adequately supported, and accessible to students across backgrounds.

The strongest finding in the analysis concerns diversity-related curricular experiences. Of all variables included in the model, the diversity-related curricular experiences scale was most strongly associated with sense of belonging. This finding suggests that diversity-related learning is deeply connected to whether arts alumni felt respected, valued, and fairly treated during college. It also supports prior research showing that culturally responsive and culturally engaging educational environments can strengthen belonging by affirming students’ identities, expanding whose knowledge is recognized, and creating more inclusive learning climates (Hurtado et al., 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Museus et al., 2017, 2018).

More frequent diversity experiences predicted stronger belonging for alumni of all racial/ethnic backgrounds, but the association was significantly stronger for non-white alumni. At low levels of diversity experiences, White alumni reported significantly higher levels of belonging than Black, Latino, and Asian alumni. At high levels of diversity experiences, those racial/ethnic differences were no longer statistically significant. This pattern suggests that diversity-rich educational environments may help reduce racial belonging gaps by creating conditions in which more students see their identities, histories, and communities reflected within the educational experience. The finding aligns with research on diverse learning environments, which emphasizes that diversity must be embedded in curriculum, pedagogy, relationships, and institutional climate to shape students’ sense of membership (Hurtado et al., 2015; Museus et al., 2017).

For arts and design institutions, diversity experiences may be especially powerful because creative fields are shaped by questions of representation, cultural lineage, aesthetic value, and social meaning. Learning about creative works from diverse cultures, learning from faculty and guest speakers with diverse identities, and engaging with racial justice or social equity in coursework can broaden students’ understanding of what counts as legitimate artistic knowledge. Arts-specific research suggests that culturally engaging campus environments and belonging-oriented pedagogies can help students connect identity, difference, and creative practice in ways that support belonging (Stachler, 2023). Based on these results, diversity-related curricular experiences should be understood as part of the core educational infrastructure of arts and design programs, rather than as optional enrichment or isolated curricular content.

Based on the findings, we also posit that belonging may have an impact beyond students’ time in college. Sense of belonging was positively associated with whether alumni would recommend their institution to another student like themselves, the extent to which alumni feel connected to their institution, and alumni’s general satisfaction with the opportunities available at their institution. These patterns are consistent with higher education research linking a student’s sense of belonging with satisfaction, motivation, persistence, and institutional attachment (Ahn & Davis, 2023; Crawford et al., 2024; Pedler et al., 2022; Strayhorn, 2018). Belonging shapes both how students experience college while enrolled and how alumni remember and evaluate their education after graduation.

Alumni belonging is closely tied to long-term institutional relationships. Research on alumni engagement finds that graduates who feel a stronger sense of belonging are more likely to remain connected to their institutions, advocate for them, and participate in forms of alumni support (Drezner & Pizmony-Levy, 2021). Related work on organizational identification and emotional attachment in higher education also shows that students and graduates who feel connected to their institutions are more likely to report satisfaction, loyalty, and positive word-of-mouth recommendations (Al Hassani & Wilkins, 2022). Within this report, the association between belonging and institutional recommendation is especially critical because it indicates that alumni’s sense of being respected, valued, and fairly treated may become part of how they communicate the worth of their educational experience to others.

This connection may be particularly consequential for arts and design programs. Creative careers often rely on networks, mentorship, collaboration, and continuing ties to artistic communities. Alumni who felt a stronger sense of belonging during college may be more likely to maintain relationships with faculty, peers, departments, and institutional networks that support creative and professional development over time. They may also be more likely to view their education as a meaningful foundation for their artistic lives and career pathways. In this sense, belonging should be understood as both a student experience outcome and a long-term institutional asset, shaping alumni connection, trust, and advocacy after graduation.

These findings point to several areas where arts and design institutions can strengthen belonging through intentional educational design. The strongest associations in the analysis were tied to experiences institutions can shape by supporting diversity-rich learning environments and opportunities for community-based creative projects, portfolio development, and internships or apprenticeships. Therefore, belonging should be treated as part of program quality, rather than as a secondary outcome of student life or campus climate. If students develop belonging through recognition, participation, and support, then curricula, advising, mentorship, critique practices, and professional preparation all become important sites for institutional action.

One implication is the need to embed diversity-related curricular experiences more consistently across arts and design education. The results illustrate that diversity-related learning is strongly associated with belonging, especially for non-White alumni. Institutions can respond by ensuring that students encounter diverse creative traditions, artists, designers, performers, histories, and cultural frameworks throughout their programs. This work also requires attention to pedagogy. Faculty development around inclusive critique, culturally responsive teaching, and equitable classroom dialogue can help ensure that diversity is represented in course content and in how students’ work is interpreted, discussed, and valued (Hurtado et al., 2015; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Museus et al., 2017; Stachler, 2023).

Community projects, portfolios, internships, and apprenticeships may also help students experience themselves as active members of creative communities, but these opportunities must be structured equitably. Arts and design institutions should consider how financial need, work obligations, disability access, transportation, materials costs, software access, and unpaid labor shape students’ ability to participate. Expanding paid internships, providing portfolio support, funding community-engaged projects, and offering clear advising around professional opportunities can help make belonging-building experiences available to more students. Such efforts are especially important in creative fields, where professional pathways often depend on networks, visibility, and early access to field-based opportunities.

Finally, institutions can use belonging as an assessment and improvement tool. Regularly measuring sense of belonging and disaggregating results by race, gender identity, first-generation status, loan burden, disability, field, and institutional context can help programs identify where students experience barriers to recognition and membership. Alumni data are especially useful because they show how students interpret their education after gaining distance from it and entering professional or creative life. When paired with current student feedback, alumni findings can help institutions understand whether their programs are creating durable forms of connection, trust, and creative confidence.

Future Research Directions

The findings from this report provide several directions for future research. First, future studies should examine the quality and depth of diversity experiences, not only their frequency. The SNAAP diversity-related curricular experiences scale captures how often alumni encountered diverse creative works, diverse faculty and guest speakers, and coursework related to racial justice or social equity. These measures are valuable, but they cannot fully show how those experiences were designed, facilitated, or interpreted by students. Future research could examine whether such experiences are most effective when they are embedded across the curriculum, connected to critique and creative practice, supported by faculty development, or paired with broader institutional commitments to equity and inclusion.

Future research should also explore how belonging operates across specific arts and design disciplines and program cultures. This analysis found that major field of study showed a weaker and less consistent pattern of associations, suggesting that belonging may vary more by local climate, pedagogy, and institutional practice than by broad artistic field alone. Qualitative and mixed-methods research could help clarify how students experience belonging in particular contexts, such as studio art, design, architecture, music, theatre, dance, media arts, or interdisciplinary creative programs. Such work could also examine how critique culture, ensemble dynamics, performance expectations, portfolio review, and professional gatekeeping shape students’ sense of recognition and membership.

Finally, future research should continue to examine belonging intersectionally, longitudinally, and for trends over time. Race, gender identity, first-generation status, loan burden, disability, and field of study may interact in ways that are not fully captured by broad group comparisons. Longitudinal research could further examine whether belonging during college predicts later creative career persistence, civic engagement, workplace inclusion, alumni connection, and satisfaction with arts education. These questions are especially valuable for understanding whether belonging functions only as a reflection of past educational experience, or whether it also shapes alumni pathways after graduation. Additionally, it will be important to continue measuring sense of belonging and exposure to diverse curricular experiences in future iterations of SNAAP administration. There may be substantial differences for recent cohorts as the political climate continues to shift, with decreased support for these types of efforts. 

In this report, we illustrate that sense of belonging among arts and design alumni is both unevenly distributed and institutionally shaped. Alumni from more advantaged backgrounds reported stronger belonging, underscoring the continuing influence of race, gender identity, first-generation status, and financial circumstances on students’ experiences of respect, value, and fair treatment. These findings echo broader research showing that belonging in higher education is shaped by institutional climate, social identity, and access to support. For arts and design education, they also highlight the importance of recognition: students are more likely to belong when their identities, creative practices, and future aspirations are treated as legitimate parts of the educational community.

Concurrently, the findings point to concrete opportunities for institutional action. Diversity-related curricular experiences and selected high-impact practices were among the strongest predictors of belonging, suggesting that arts and design programs can strengthen belonging through the design of educational experiences. Diversity-rich curricula, community-based creative work, portfolio development, and internships or apprenticeships may help students see their work as meaningful, their identities as recognized, and their creative futures as connected to broader artistic and professional communities.

Belonging should be understood as a measure of educational quality and equity in arts and design programs. It reflects whether students experience their programs as places where they are respected, valued, supported, and able to participate fully. Strengthening belonging requires attention to curriculum, pedagogy, mentorship, professional preparation, financial access, and institutional climate. For arts and design institutions, this work is essential to sustaining creative education that is inclusive, participatory, and responsive to the diverse students and communities they serve.