Mathematics motivation and sense of belonging among transgender and nonbinary college students

An extensive body of psychological research on gender-related influences in mathematics education has focused on cisgender women and men, while excluding transgender and nonbinary individuals. However, research focused solely on cisgender learners often fails to adequately capture the educational experiences of nonbinary and transgender individuals. In this study, we apply (1) the situated expectancy-value theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020) and (2) the socio-ecological framework of school belonging (Allen et al., 2016), to examine the experiences of transgender and nonbinary college students in postsecondary mathematics courses. Mathematics goals, trajectories, motivational beliefs, and sense of belonging were measured with the College Mathematics Beliefs and Belonging survey (Sidney et al., 2024) in a parent study. Responses from a subset of N = 38 students identifying as nonbinary and/or transgender were examined. The transgender and nonbinary students in our sample agreed that mathematics is useful and that they feel confident in their ability to use mathematics, though there was less agreement about whether they enjoy mathematics. Furthermore, transgender and nonbinary students felt well connected to, and able to work with, their peers but reported a low sense of belonging to a broader mathematics community. Students on a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) trajectory reported higher mathematics motivation and a stronger sense of belonging. The present work serves as a hypothesis-generating, exploratory study in which we described and explored gender-diverse student experiences in mathematics to set the stage for future research in building a comprehensive literature that accounts for a broader set of math-learning experiences, considering gender socialization in mathematics settings.