Beyond Language Proficiency: An In-Depth Intersectional Inquiry into Marginalized Students’ Belonging Experiences at an ‘English-Medium’ University

Abstract

This dissertation examines the experiences of (non-)belonging among marginalized students enrolled in the English Preparatory Program (EPP) of a prominent ‘English-medium’ university in Northern Cyprus. While ‘English-medium’ instruction (EMI) is often marketed as a pathway to global prestige and social mobility, this study explores how it simultaneously functions as a powerful site of social stratification and institutional gatekeeping. Utilizing a critical qualitative case study design, the research draws on Nunn’s (2021) belonging framework and Núñez’s (2014b) multilevel intersectionality model to analyze data generated through a comprehensive qualitative dataset encompassing interviews, surveys, observations, focus groups, institutional documents, the researcher’s journal, and WhatsApp communications. The inquiry foregrounds how students’ intersecting identities, including social class, ethnicity, and religious affiliation, interact with institutional policies and broader historical forces to produce uneven experiences of belonging. The findings demonstrate that the EPP often withholds belonging through seemingly neutral practices that normalize a high rate of student ‘failure.’ Academic belonging is significantly undermined by a curriculum mismatched with student realities and high-stakes assessment regimes that prioritize monolingual accuracy over communicative competence. Furthermore, students face significant socioeconomic impediments, such as demanding work schedules and lengthy commutes, which combine with the representational erasure of their diverse identities to constrain their social and campus community belonging. Despite these structural barriers, the study highlights student resilience, documented through the formation of localized pockets of belonging and the theorization of aspirational belonging, a future-oriented psychological mechanism that allows students to persist in exclusionary environments. The dissertation concludes by calling for a reclamation of institutional responsibility, urging EMI institutions to dismantle monolingual hegemonies and reimagine EMI as an equitable praxis that centers the diverse lived realities of their students. It also provides practical pathways for institutional change through translanguaging and critical language testing to dismantle monolingual hegemonies in EMI settings.