Career and Calling Circles: Spaces of Belonging for First-Year Underrepresented Students

Abstract

This article describes All Rise, a career and calling circle (CCC) designed to address first-year underrepresented pre-law college students’ sense of belonging. The article focuses on how the practice was designed, developed, and evaluated. Although restorative practices such as the circle process have emerged in response to addressing student disciplinary issues on college campuses, little research exists as to how these approaches could be applied to proactively contribute to a sense of belonging. Specifically, this emerging intervention leverages the career interests of underrepresented (i.e., racially-minoritized, first-generation, and Pell-eligible) first-year students to create spaces that attempt to promote a sense of belonging. Understanding whether the CCC contributed to the participants’ sense of belonging can assist pre-professional and career advisors, faculty, and administrators to more fully support underrepresented pre-professional students. The outcomes students reported from participating in this career and calling circle were that it made their professional goals more tangible and increased their confidence to pursue those goals, but also provided a safe space to connect with others. The results suggest that CCCs positively influenced students’ sense of belonging both at the university and in their pre-professional journeys.

Keywords:

• Restorative practices
• circle process
• sense of belonging
• career development
• underrepresented students