Sense of belonging among university students: Relations with sexual harassment and negative emotional states

The present study is part of a broader research project regarding students’ reported experiences of sexual harassment in the context of academic life, funded by the Special Account for Research Funds of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh), under the auspices of the Gender Equality Committee and the Center for Social Research and Decision Making of the AUTh. More particularly, this study aimed to investigate the levels of students’ sense of belonging to their university community and whether this sense relates to their reported experiences and perceptions of sexual harassment and negative emotional states, such as stress, anxiety, and depression. Overall, 2.134 students (70.5% women), anonymously and voluntarily completed an electronic questionnaire, which included self-reported scales related to the variables involved (sense of belonging, sexual harassment, negative emotional states). According to the results of the Latent Class Analysis (LCA), the students, without gender-based statistically significant differences, were categorized into four clusters/groups: the “non-integrated” (50.15%), the “partially non-integrated” (27.39%), the “partially integrated” (13.48%) and the “integrated” (8.98%). Furthermore, it was found that the “integrated” students, who presented a higher sense of belonging, were related to a much lower probability of experiencing sexual harassment (and its perceived psychoeducational consequences) as well as negative emotional states. Despite the fact that the study was conducted after the end of the quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings highlight the relations between students’ sense of belonging and their psychosocial adaptation in the university community, implying at the same time the necessity of implementing appropriate psychoeducational interventions.