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Affective Inequalities beyond Heteronormativity. Impostor Feelings, Wellbeing and Belonging in STEM Students in the UK and India

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Title: Affective Inequalities beyond Heteronormativity. Impostor Feelings, Wellbeing and Belonging in STEM Students in the UK and India
Language: English
Authors: Daniel Leyton (ORCID 0000-0003-2472-9835), Barbara Read (ORCID 0000-0002-8125-8550), Bonnie Slade (ORCID 0000-0001-9737-7004), Zyra Evangelista (ORCID 0000-0002-6980-8281), Srabani Maitra (ORCID 0000-0003-1840-1294), Saikat Maitra (ORCID 0000-0002-4289-4255)
Source: Educational Review. 2026 78(1):39-60.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 22
Publication Date: 2026
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, College Students, LGBTQ People, Sex, STEM Education, Minority Group Students, Student Welfare, Sense of Belonging, Self Concept, Negative Attitudes, Psychological Patterns, Expectation, Behavior Standards, Social Behavior
Geographic Terms: United Kingdom, India
DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2024.2438877
ISSN: 0013-1911
1465-3397
Abstract: STEM in higher education has been framed as a central site to boost the knowledge-based economy. Within this context, gender equality and mental health have been of primary concern. However, the affective inequalities experienced by STEM students with marginalised "sexual orientations and gender identities" -- SOGI -- remain underexplored. In this article, we drew on Butler's work on the heterosexual matrix and Ahmed's gendered notion of affective economy to analyse students' impostor phenomenon experience in relation to wellbeing and belonging. Based on a sample of STEM students from Indian and UK universities and articulating statistical analyses with feminist affective politics of interpretation, we identified affective inequalities that were significantly intense in marginalised SOGI students. These inequalities were indexed in higher levels of impostor feelings associated with fear, disappointment, self-doubt and unworthiness; lower levels of wellbeing; and precarious sense of belonging. Importantly, when we intersected gender and sexual orientations, these experiences of affective inequalities became more visible. We highlight the relevance of both taking heteronormativity from an affective lens and going beyond assumed heterosexualities in the study of inequalities in STEM fields in higher education.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2026
Accession Number: EJ1502722
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0191102433;edi01jan.26;2026Jan28.00:52;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0191102433-1">Affective inequalities beyond heteronormativity. Impostor feelings, wellbeing and belonging in STEM students in the UK and India </title> <p>STEM in higher education has been framed as a central site to boost the knowledge-based economy. Within this context, gender equality and mental health have been of primary concern. However, the affective inequalities experienced by STEM students with marginalised "sexual orientations and gender identities" – SOGI – remain underexplored. In this article, we drew on Butler's work on the heterosexual matrix and Ahmed's gendered notion of affective economy to analyse students' impostor phenomenon experience in relation to wellbeing and belonging. Based on a sample of STEM students from Indian and UK universities and articulating statistical analyses with feminist affective politics of interpretation, we identified affective inequalities that were significantly intense in marginalised SOGI students. These inequalities were indexed in higher levels of impostor feelings associated with fear, disappointment, self-doubt and unworthiness; lower levels of wellbeing; and precarious sense of belonging. Importantly, when we intersected gender and sexual orientations, these experiences of affective inequalities became more visible. We highlight the relevance of both taking heteronormativity from an affective lens and going beyond assumed heterosexualities in the study of inequalities in STEM fields in higher education.</p> <p>Keywords: Affect theory; educational inequality; heteronormativity; higher education; sexual identity; gender discrimination</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-2">Introduction</hd> <p>The intensifying political economy of skills has influenced global higher education's (HE) discursive and material investment in STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) (Durazzi, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref1">25</reflink>]), making them increasingly central to the knowledge-based economy imaginary governing HE's dynamics (Sum & Jessop, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref2">49</reflink>]). Within this context, there is a growing preoccupation with women students' wellbeing and mental health in HE, including "impostor feelings", and STEM's pervasive heteropatriarchal dynamics hampering gender equity and women's success (Gupta, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref3">30</reflink>]; Reggiani et al., [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref4">43</reflink>]; Tao & Gloria, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref5">51</reflink>]).</p> <p>Against this backdrop, we present findings from a survey with STEM students in the UK and India. This was part of a broader UKRI-Funded study that explored their gendered journeys in STEM fields (ES/T005068/1). The survey included measures of belonging, wellbeing and impostor phenomenon (IP) (Clance, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref6">21</reflink>]), ethnic and racial backgrounds, and indicators of gender and sexual identities. IP refers to persistent difficulties in recognising individuals' merits and feelings of being a fraud and being exposed (Slank, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref7">48</reflink>]) and it has been depicted as seemingly ubiquitous in Western HE institutions (Breeze, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref8">12</reflink>]). However, little is known about its deployment across different sexual orientations beyond heteronormative framings and outside the Anglo-Atlantic region. We explored IP and its relation to wellbeing and belonging in these two countries as gendered and affective experiences of inequalities. We focused, especially, on the intersections of gender and ethnic/racialised backgrounds with non-heterosexual identities such as lesbian, gay and bisexual students.</p> <p>An expanding sense of inequality, comprising an affective dimension irreducible to individual, symbolic or material injustice, drives our focus on impostor feelings, wellbeing and belonging. Following authors such as Bottero ([<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref9">10</reflink>]), Ahmed ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref10">3</reflink>]) and Skeggs ([<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref11">47</reflink>]), by affective inequalities, we understand "the embodied dispositions and emotions produced by subordination" (Bottero, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref12">10</reflink>], p. 89) expressed in diverse senses of shame, envy, resignation, indignation, pain, sense of diminished self-confidence, belonging and security, embodied feelings of tiredness, anxiety, fear or failure, as well as in constrained senses of entitlement that reduce subjects' agency and possibilities to benefit from diverse social spaces. A turn to affects enables us to analyse these experiences as embodiments of affective discourses within institutionalised STEM cultures of success and competition in HE.</p> <p>We approach these experiences of affective inequalities by building on Butler's ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref13">14</reflink>]; [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref14">16</reflink>]) queer notion of the heterosexual matrix and Ahmed's ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref15">3</reflink>]) cultural politics of emotion. Butler's heterosexual matrix points to the way sexuality is reinforced as naturally heterosexual by tightening it to the gender binary of masculine and feminine and this to a universalising assumption of sex as naturally divided in male and female (Lloyd, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref16">34</reflink>]; McCann & Monaghan, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref17">35</reflink>]). While the heterosexual matrix does not assume a determinant effect over gender, it makes us focus on "how sexuality is regulated through the policing and the shaming of gender", through for example, "calling gay men 'feminine' or calling lesbians 'masculine'" (Butler, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref18">14</reflink>], p. 206).</p> <p>Ahmed's cultural politics of emotions, on the other hand, helps us to extend our attention beyond the exclusive domain of sexual practices and to the affects mediating between the heterosexual hegemony and its gender hierarchy in HE and STEM spaces, and the embodied feelings that shape students with marginalised Sexual Orientations and Gender Identities (hereafter SOGI). Ahmed ([<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref19">2</reflink>], p. 119) argues that affects "mediate the relationship between the psychic and the social". Thus, in institutional contexts where heteronormativity is present, affects mediate between how gendered subjects feel and should feel and the spaces – their public cultures and dominant bodies – they come into contact with (Ahmed, [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref20">3</reflink>]).</p> <p>Cognizant of the historical-contingent nature of dominant masculinist practices of surveys, and taking a queer and feminist post-structural stand, we deployed a politics of data production and analysis able to reveal the affective impact of inequalities based on embodied gender and sexual identities, and contest "masculinist forms of knowledge" (Browne & Nash, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref21">13</reflink>], p. 12). Thus, we consider our survey as discursively constituting participants' meaning-making of its questions and recognise their gendered and sexualised positioning expressed in their responses as contingent. Through our survey's analysis, we hope to contribute to destabilise the heteronormative assumption over sexual orientations often fixed in quantitative approaches that disregard queer epistemologies and to countering the production of marginalised sexualities' invisibility (Morley & Leyton, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref22">38</reflink>]). We also contribute to the emerging research on marginalised sexual diversities in comparative education research (Bracho, [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref23">11</reflink>]). Queer feminism problematises the complicities of research in the reproduction of heteronormativity as normal way of knowing and being. This is timely in a global context where the heterosexual matrix is re-mobilised by far-right, conservative and authoritarian forces.</p> <p>In what follows, we first present our theoretical framework where we problematise impostor feelings popularly understood as "syndrome", and we develop our perspective on affective inequalities and heteronormativity based on the notions of heterosexual matrix, affective economy, and the related concept of embodied intersectionality (Mirza, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref24">37</reflink>]). In the methodological section, we present our measurements and reflect on the different rates of responses regarding sexual orientation, as well as on the limitations of our survey to address marginalised SOGI. In the third section, we present and discuss our findings, emphasising the embodied experiences of IP, wellbeing and belonging in students with marginalised SOGI, and finally, we develop our conclusions.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-3">Re-Framing impostor feelings beyond syndrome</hd> <p>A growing body of writings, citing the concept of impostor syndrome, circulates globally.[<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref25">1</reflink>] However, its wider circulation is not neutral. A syndrome is a set of concomitant individual signs sanctioned by the medical discourse as abnormal and linked to possible diseases. We see this notion as an epistemology that distinguishes the normal from the pathological as an essential truth about the body and the psyche (Canguilhem, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref26">17</reflink>]). From a queer perspective, the pathological is made by pointing out gender identities and sexual orientations which do not conform to the norms of heterosexuality as mismatches between the body and subjectivity, which in turn, are signalled as medical and psychological problems as well as features of inferior subjects (McCann & Monaghan, [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref27">35</reflink>]).[<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref28">2</reflink>]</p> <p>The pathological is also construed in affective terms; as an inferior and improper cluster of affectivities hindering the participation in society (Bollmer, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref29">9</reflink>]). The syndrome's discourse reframes IP as the incapability of reason to self-identify with and have a feel for meritocratic and competitive narratives of success (Slank, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref30">48</reflink>]).</p> <p>Before conducting any analyses, it is crucial to maintain epistemological vigilance over the syndrome's discourse, and related mental health discourses more generally, given the stigmatising effects they might have among women and LGBTQ+ communities in STEM and HE. These harms are especially profound for women and queer subjects from subaltern castes in India (Gupta, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref31">28</reflink>]; Rege, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref32">42</reflink>]) and Black communities in the UK (Bhopal & Chapman, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref33">7</reflink>]). This awareness underscores the importance of a queer feminist, intersectional and postcolonial politics of knowledge that fosters both critical assessments of categories, and epistemic and methodological creativity in addressing marginalised SOGI issues in HE (Dutoya, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref34">26</reflink>], p. 40).</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-4">Heterosexual matrix and affective economy: theorising affective inequalities in heteronormati...</hd> <p>We think of the norms governing gender and sexualities as produced by contingent and historical relations of power, knowledge and affects. They are instrumental in delineating and norming subjectivities and subjects' positions within a heterosexual matrix (Butler, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref35">16</reflink>]). According to Butler ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref36">16</reflink>]), the heterosexual matrix foregrounds heteronormativity as a process of normalisation enmeshed and assumed in social and institutional spaces such as education, STEM-based industries, and health, as well as in intimate spaces like the family, romantic relationships and friendships. The heterosexual matrix serves as the dominant grid of intelligibility, sanctioning heteronormativity as the natural and desirable set of norms that individuals are expected to follow and uphold. However, what makes the heterosexual matrix's hegemony possible is the reiterative nature of the alignment between ideal bodily binary norms of gender, sex and sexuality that it imposes. By the discursive reiteration of this alignment, the matrix makes us feel natural and even necessary the assumption that one's gender, as solely masculine/feminine, and one's sex, as exclusively male/female, enables only a heterosexual orientation as the legitimate one (Butler, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref37">16</reflink>]).</p> <p>Research in STEM has showed this gender performativity – its constant reiteration and sedimentation –, for instance, in the circulation of predominantly heterosexual men and hegemonic masculine expressions across STEM spaces, in the persistent accrual of advantages by the part of heterosexual white men, frequent overt or covert anti-LGBTQ+ slurs and sexual prejudices, or by the repetition of STEM pedagogies and curricula that reinforce the normalisation of gender and sexual binaries in these disciplines (Cech & Rothwell, [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref38">18</reflink>]; Cech & Waidzunas, [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref39">19</reflink>]; Hughes et al., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref40">32</reflink>]). Heteronormativity attempts to discipline sexual differences by locating them in a wider field of normality. In relation to the affective, it works on subjectivities by "producing in those who stand outside the normative order, a fearful and melancholic subjectivity" (Davies, [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref41">23</reflink>], p. 21). These affective subjective formations are also the effects of being outside the dominant and narrow terms that confer recognition to individuals and collective identities.</p> <p>In this theorisation, Butler looks at how these binaries exclude and marginalise when agents and institutions render them as mutually exclusive and universal. Heteronormativity places women in a subordinated position to men while also refusing and subordinating non-heterosexual identities and practices (Lloyd, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref42">34</reflink>]). The heterosexual matrix, thus, is exclusionary and marginalising as it requires for its masculine hegemony, idealised femininity and disciplined sexuality "the simultaneous production of a domain of abject beings, those who are not 'subjects', but who form the constitutive outside of the domain of the [legitimate, natural, neutral, desirable, normal] subject" (Butler, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref43">16</reflink>], p. 3).</p> <p>This process, far from pertaining only to a space of intimacy or private life, is co-extensive to and constitutes zones of uninhabitability, which, in turn, have the power to make the life of those who do not conform to these norms unlivable (Butler, [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref44">14</reflink>]; Lloyd, [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref45">34</reflink>]). Following Ahmed ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref46">3</reflink>]), the constitution of these "zones" also generates affective forces that shape "bodies as well as worlds" as "investments, which are 'taken on' and 'taken in' by subjects" ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref47">3</reflink>], pp. 146–147). Drawing on Ahmed ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref48">3</reflink>]), heterosexual norms transcend the field of sexuality, extending themselves into other social spaces. Through these extensions into, they organise the ways bodies – and embodied subjectivities – participate in those fields, as well as the distribution of affects according to the gendered norms and normative moods which shape those spaces ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref49">3</reflink>], pp. 145–148). Crucially, heteronorms must be located at the intersection with other axes of inequalities such as racialised norms that associate and reinforce the stigmatisation and subaltern positions with descent, blood, colour and language.</p> <p>In our contexts of study, racialised norms are entrenched in practices and imaginaries that tie social groups to specific labour and related positions, privileges and regards. This is the case, for instance, with Dalits culturally and materially tied to physical, risky, manual, and stigmatised labour, and Brahmins attached to the entitlement to develop and lead science, and rendering practices to downplay any connection between their dominant position in STEM and the caste system (Thomas, [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref50">50</reflink>]).</p> <p>Intersectionality in our framework plays an important role. It looks at the reinforcing of different positional and discursive dimensions or "backgrounds" by which power and advantages are organised, form patterns of oppression, and divide subordinated groups. Closer to Ahmed's approach to affective economies is the concept of "embodied intersectionality" which examines how those positional divisions and discourses that sustain them are affectively experienced and embodied (Mirza, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref51">37</reflink>]). Crucially, for Ahmed ([<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref52">4</reflink>]), heteronormative backgrounds, such as the family's undergirded gender binary and heterosexuality, deploy pressure that summons us to aspire towards their reproduction; they present themselves in front of us as the imagined good life.</p> <p>By articulating these frameworks, we seek to capture some of the embodied manifestations of these affective atmospheres and states – IP, wellbeing and belonging –, along with the regular patterns through which they unfold across different STEM and HE contexts and gendered bodies and subjectivities. Ultimately, looking through these theoretical tools, helps us to expose affective inequalities over marginalised SOGI and their relationship with dynamics of power and knowledge in STEM spaces.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-5">Indian and UK HE in STEM contexts</hd> <p>A strong emphasis on science and technology are a feature of HE in India and the UK. In India, within a broader discursive context of postcolonial and national development, a special emphasis on both HE-industry links and gender equality initiatives has been made in STEM areas during the last decade (Devika et al., [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref53">24</reflink>]; Gupta, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref54">29</reflink>]). The All-India Surveys of Higher Education – AISHE – have reported continued growth in women's enrolment in all STEM subjects. Currently, 41.2% of STEM undergraduates are women. Whereas men still dominate engineering and technology subjects, in the science stream, 50.8% are women; a proportion that increases at postgraduate levels (Ministry of Education of India, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref55">36</reflink>]). Nevertheless, there is a persistent underrepresentation of women from lower castes in HE – 15% and 6% are women students from Schedule Castes and Scheduled Tribe, respectively – and STEM careers, especially in prestigious IITs where women account just for 25% of the total enrolment (Gupta, [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref56">28</reflink>]; Ministry of Education of India, [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref57">36</reflink>]). These changes in enrolment are related to HE privatisation, the growing centrality of STEM knowledge for the economy, and the middle-class patriarchal anxieties related to marriage opportunities (Gupta, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref58">27</reflink>]). Thus, without necessarily challenging this gendered-masculinist structure, policy initiatives have also contributed to women's and lower castes' participation rate in STEM through scholarships, outreach programmes, affirmative actions, and recently, anti-sexual harassment policies (Gupta, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref59">27</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref60">29</reflink>]). However, a masculinist-casteist culture continues to pervade HE. Men and women from lower castes (Scheduled castes and Scheduled Tribes) experience higher levels of alienation from STEM environments and the lowest levels of self-esteem, self-efficacy and performance (Gupta, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref61">30</reflink>]). Yet, women from these castes are more intensively affected by their sense of alienation and self-efficacy (Gupta, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref62">30</reflink>]). These intersections of caste and gender must be contextualised within still pervasive experiences of sexism, harassment and exclusionary practices in broader academic spaces and STEM fields (Chakraverty & Rishi, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref63">20</reflink>]; Sabharwal et al., [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref64">46</reflink>]).</p> <p>However, no policy awareness exists towards marginalised SOGIs, with policy discourses still predominantly framed in binary terms targeting women, and without significant gender sensitisation initiatives for men (Krishna, [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref65">33</reflink>]).</p> <p>Like India, the proportion of women in UK STEM undergraduate courses has increased significantly, from 33% in 2011 to 41.4% in 2021, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref66">31</reflink>]). However, women are significantly underrepresented in computing, engineering and technology subjects, comprising around 20%−25% of the total student population in these areas (AdvanceHE, [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref67">1</reflink>], p. 165). Inequalities amplify when accounting for students' racial and ethnic backgrounds. For instance, less than 10% of the total students' enrolment in STEM are black, and attainment gaps between white and Black, Asian and other Minority Ethnic (hereafter BAME) students are significant. More than 80% of white students received first or second-class degrees in STEM whereas less than 60% of black students attained those levels (Universities UK, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref68">52</reflink>]).</p> <p>Multiple initiatives have been promoted in UK universities to foster gender inclusion and diversity in STEM such as the ATHENA SWAN programme, and government policies, such as the Improving Gender Balance in Physics (now discontinued) and "I Belong" Programme oriented to include girls into computing programmes, among others (National Centre for Computing Education, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref69">39</reflink>]). However, they overwhelmingly focus on girls and women, follow trends that reproduce deficit discourses of confidence, and lack intersectional imaginaries to address the interplay between gender and racial axes of inequalities (Archer et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref70">6</reflink>]). This, according to Archer et al. ([<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref71">6</reflink>]), avoids addressing structural inequalities and deep-seated racist and masculinist cultures in STEM (Archer et al., [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref72">6</reflink>]).</p> <p>This situation of gender and racial inequalities in STEM creates, on the one hand, an imaginary of women, lower castes and BAME and marginalised SOGIs as exceptions and deficit. On the other hand, it perpetuates heteronorms and discriminatory dynamics, making the barriers to equity resistant to change and STEM fields undesirable and feared.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-6">Methods</hd> <p>The data in this paper are drawn from a UKRI-Funded project, <emph>Gendered Journeys</emph>: <emph>the Trajectories of STEM students through higher Education and Into Employment</emph> (ES/T005068/1). This project involved quantitative and qualitative methods to explore STEM students' and employees' perceptions and experiences. This paper draws on an online survey we conducted to explore different psycho-social patterns of gendered inequalities in STEM students, specifically from our Indian and UK samples.[<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref73">3</reflink>] The survey comprised measures of wellbeing, self-efficacy, impostor phenomenon, and belonging, alongside gender and sexual orientation, and ethnic identifications. Participants were recruited through convenience and snowball sampling. The survey invitation was circulated via university e-mail and relevant mailing lists. Data cleaning and validation resulted in a final pool of 461 STEM student respondents from the UK (<emph>N</emph> = 218) and India (<emph>N</emph> = 243).</p> <p>Most of our respondents from India were from one of the most prestigious universities located in a metropolis of India (58.8%), and from one prestigious science-oriented national research institute (23.9%) under the mandate of the Government of India. A further 7.5% comes from two other "high-ranked" universities in that major city. Our participants from the UK principally came from five Russell Group universities,[<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref74">4</reflink>] accounting for 89.4%. Two had the most significant proportion, representing 60% of our UK sample. There is 10% in each students' sample from other technological institutes and universities.</p> <p>In both samples, the institutions featured a minority of lower castes students and BAME students in the case of India and the UK, respectively. The UK sample was comprised predominantly of white British students and European and American students – 57.7% and 18.8%, respectively. Students from minority ethnic backgrounds accounted for 23.5% of our UK sample. 12.4% were from Asian backgrounds (South and Southeast Asian backgrounds, mainly), and 10.8% were from black, mixed and other ethnic identities. In our sample from India, 40% self-identify as part of a lower caste, with a majority of them belonging to Scheduled castes – 22% of the total sample.</p> <p>For this paper, we consider gender and sexual self-identification as the main dimensions guiding our analyses. For our Indian and UK sample, 75.1% (<emph>n</emph> = 346) self-identified as Women, 22.1% (<emph>n </emph>= 102) as Men, and 2.8% (<emph>n </emph>= 13) as other or non-binary gender.[<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref75">5</reflink>] We also had 1.5% (<emph>n</emph> = 7) self-identified as transgender, all from the UK. Among them, two identified themselves as woman, one as man and four as non-binary. All of them stated also being bisexuals, gay or lesbian, or other non-heterosexual orientation. Considering all the sample, 2.8% (<emph>n </emph>= 13) self-identified as Asexual, 12.1% (<emph>n </emph>= 56) as Bisexual, 4.3% (<emph>n </emph>= 20) as Gay/Lesbian, 73.3% (<emph>n </emph>= 338) as Heterosexual or Straight, 1.5% (<emph>n </emph>= 7) selected "Other sexual orientation" and 5.9% (<emph>n </emph>= 27) preferred not to say their sexuality. Overall, 20.8% (<emph>n</emph> = 96) of STEM students self-identified with sexual orientations other than heterosexual identities.</p> <p>While those transgender students that stated their sexual orientation and identified as women or men are included in the analyses, their lower numbers (1.5% of the total) impede us conducting an analysis that considers them in their gender specificity, this being one of the significant limitations of our sample.</p> <p>57.7% of our participants study science-related disciplines, 23% in engineering and technology and 19.7% in maths. While both country samples had similar proportions in engineering and technology, 67.9% of our UK sample were in science-related areas and 9.6% in Maths, and our respondents from India were 47.7% and 28.8% in these two streams, respectively. 65% of the marginalised SOGI students were in science-related disciplines, and 18.7% and 16.3% were in engineering and technology, and maths, respectively.</p> <p>In our sample, 7.8% of students from India did not disclose their sexuality compared to 3.7% of students from the UK. Reflecting on these differential rates, we speculate about the heteronormative cultural and legal frameworks in India holding sway in dominant representations of and opposition to queer families and sexual relationships, as well as in the related affective economy of fear and self-censorship that may influence participants' possibilities and dispositions to express their sexual orientation in the survey. In the case of India, casteist-patriarchal norms, including the significantly higher opposition to same-sex relationships in contrast to the UK (Pew Research Center, [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref76">40</reflink>]),[<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref77">6</reflink>] and the criminalisation of same-sex marriage, despite queer movements advocacy work, need to be considered. Alongside such cultural and legal forces, the limitations of our questionnaire, with their assumptions of stable and discrete gender and sexual orientations can impact upon the impossibilities and/or refusal to submit to clear sexual orientation categories. Resisting these static and discrete categories can be a way to resist hegemonic and disciplinary categories.</p> <p>When interpreting the data, it is essential to be mindful of the affective mobilisation of these heteronormative contexts, as well as the methodological limitations of our survey, including the distribution across disciplines, the representation of transgender students and the gendered epistemological assumptions of our gender and sexuality survey's questions. Despite these limitations, our survey enables exploring the affective inequalities experienced by students with marginalised SOGI and the strategies they feel compelled to deploy. This contributes to broadening the questioning of STEM as spaces driven by heteronormativity.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-7">Measurements of impostor feelings</hd> <p>The survey employed the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (Clance, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref78">21</reflink>]) to measure the quality and intensity of impostor feelings. The scale consists of 20 items and uses a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Not at all true to 5 = Very true). Higher scores indicate higher levels of IP. We ran a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to identify relevant dimensions.[<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref79">7</reflink>] We creatively read them identifying the affects they contained. The scale is a rich and complex psychological discourse on success and mental health-related issues, which allows us to extract core feelings cited and underpinned by each statement. The PCA showed a significant consistency of the factors and main statements structuring the IP across our participants from India and the UK. This allowed us to identify the discursive-affective dimensions configuring the IP experiences of our STEM students.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-8">Measurements of belonging and wellbeing</hd> <p>We constructed summative indexes[<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref80">8</reflink>] measuring belonging and wellbeing by adapting standardised measures (e.g. Yorke, [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref81">53</reflink>]; World Health Organization, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref82">54</reflink>]).</p> <p>Four indexes of belonging were developed based on PCA results.[<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref83">9</reflink>] The first index (Fitting in) captured positive feelings of social fit within their university (e.g. "Admin staff, teaching staff, and my fellow students at my university accept me"). The second index – Alienation – captured experiences of isolation from their university (e.g. "I feel like an outsider at my university"). The third index – Safeness – explored feelings of comfort across university spaces (e.g. library, student organisations). The fourth index – Connectedness – measured feelings of respect and connectedness (e.g. "How well do people at your university understand you as a person?"). All indexes used a 5-point Likert scale with higher scores indicating higher levels. Through these measures, we can grasp belonging beyond a single-unitary understanding of it.</p> <p>For wellbeing, we used the World Health Organization's Index ([<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref84">54</reflink>]). This is comprised of five indicators about the ways individuals feel their bodily capacities for agency. It points out energies that affect bodies, such as feeling "cheerful", "vigorous", and "fresh". We interpret them as agentic conditions impacting bodies and their intensities. While this index is individualistic, it, nonetheless, can indicate the affective dynamics attached to certain bodies more than to others.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-9">Findings</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0191102433-10">The affective-discursive assemblage of impostor feelings in STEM students</hd> <p>Considering each statement comprising the Clance IP Scale, we undertook an interpretive reading of our PCA by looking at the specific students' feelings involved in the IP Scale's dominant discourses. Table 1 summarises this analysis, showing IP's affective-discursive vectors (factors), their statistical weight (% of variance explained), and the key affects mobilised within those discourses.</p> <p>Table 1. Impostor phenomenon affective-discursive vectors and their key affects. Based on the PCA.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td>Main affective-discursive vectors (% variance explained)</td><td>Key statements (the three with highest values in each dimension)</td><td>Key affect</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Fear of Failure (India = 35.9% UK = 30.5%)</td><td>I'm often afraid that I may fail at a new assignment or undertaking even though I generally do well at what I attempt.</td><td>Fear</td></tr><tr><td> I often worry about not succeeding with a project or examination, even though others around me have considerable confidence that I will do well.</td><td>Disappointment</td></tr><tr><td>When I've succeeded at something and received recognition for my accomplishments, I have doubts that I can keep repeating that success.</td><td>Self-doubt</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecognition of Merit (India =14.2% UK = 23.9%)</td><td>I sometimes think I obtained my present position or gained my present success because I happened to be in the right place at the right time or knew the right people.</td><td>Unworthiness</td></tr><tr><td>At times, I feel my success has been due to some kind of luck.</td><td>Unworthiness</td></tr><tr><td>Sometimes I feel or believe that my success in my life or in my job has been the result of some kind of error.</td><td>Unworthiness</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness (India = 8.3% UK = 7.4%)</td><td>I have often succeeded on a test or task even though I was afraid that I would not do well before I undertook the task.</td><td>Fear</td></tr><tr><td>I can give the impression that I'm more competent than I really am.</td><td>Enterprising Fakeness</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>This analysis underscores the significant dimensions configuring the students' impostor feelings. This shows us that IP is configured by an assemblage of diverse affects associated to specific discourses of failure (fear, disappointment, self-doubt), meritocracy (unworthiness) and entrepreneurial self (fakeness). The affective embodiment of the IP is clearly and significantly associated with a diminished self within a rationality of competition and comparisons.</p> <p>Fear of failure involves a specific relationship with others and the fear of letting them down. In other statistically significant statements comprising this dimension ("I often compare my ability to those around me and think they may be more intelligent than I am" or "When people praise me for something I've accomplished, I'm afraid I won't be able to live up to their expectations ... ") the others are construed as a threat and a parameter of damaging comparisons that lead students to feel themselves as disappointments.</p> <p>Our PCA shows that at the core of impostor feelings, in both samples, is the fear of failure that diminishes students' sense of legitimacy in belonging to STEM spaces. Failing to feel successful leads to the constitution of a fearful subjectivity, haunted by self-doubts and with a heightened sense of vulnerability to the "Other". This "Other", in Butler's terms ([<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref85">15</reflink>]), is both the "Others" students have in mind when they berate themselves and the embodiment of the norms that confer the terms under which they can be recognised and valued in STEM. In our sample from India, self-doubts were strongly manifested in situations where students were recognised for their accomplishments. However, self-doubts haunted them about their likelihood to "keep repeating that success". In the case of our UK sample, this feeling was more frequently unfolded by comparisons and recalling of failures, which played a significant role in downplaying students' self-confidence in their intellectual capacities.</p> <p>The IP's discourse on the misrecognition of merits and its core affect – unworthiness – must be contextualised within a competitive culture that pathologises the dynamics that constitute failure and make individuals responsible for it in STEM contexts (see Breeze, [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref86">12</reflink>]; Slank, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref87">48</reflink>]). By moving away from pathologisation, we want to make visible the affective inequality involved in this meritocratic discourse as an effect of the forced subordination to its norm. Importantly, <emph>feeling unworthy</emph> inscribes the figure of others as sources of unworthiness rather than support.</p> <p>Lastly, the entrepreneurial discourse related with feelings of fakeness, albeit less relevant in the students' experiences, in terms of its general statistical weight, has a specific effect over some students with marginalised SOGI. As we will show in the following sections, this suggests that the practice of pretending to have the required competence not just reproduces a problematic, superficial engagement with knowledge but also enables some students to overcome their feeling of insecurity and isolation about their own capabilities. If the values often attributed to impostor feelings are negative, this dimension seems to be more ambiguous.</p> <p>The affective economy that characterised these embodied fearful and vulnerable subjectivities is significantly gendered and, as we show next, unequally distributed across gender and sexual orientations, affecting more those whose sexual identities stand outside the heteronormative order. To better understand the working of IP in relation to wellbeing and belonging in heteronormative STEM contexts, in the following sections, we analytically deploy these feelings across gender and sexual orientations and in intersection with racialised backgrounds specific to each country.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-11">The gendered experiences of impostor feelings in STEM students</hd> <p>Affective experiences of inequalities in STEM attach with unequal intensities to different gendered bodies. Our analyses show that, overall, significant differences regarding experiences of impostor feelings, belonging and wellbeing are more visible when an intersectional analysis between gender and sexual orientations is undertaken. As Table 2 suggests, when intersecting sexual orientation and gender, a hierarchy of affective injustices is deployed, impacting more severely heterosexual women and students with marginalised SOGI, and privileging heterosexual men.</p> <p>Table 2. Average intensities of experiences associated with impostor feelings, belonging and wellbeing according to men and women and sexual orientations.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td /><td /><td>India</td><td>UK</td></tr><tr><td>Variables</td><td>Dimensions</td><td>Women</td><td>Men</td><td>Marginalised sexual orientations</td><td>Heterosexual orientation</td><td>Women</td><td>Men</td><td>Marginalised sexual orientations</td><td>Heterosexual orientation</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Impostor Feelings</td><td>Fear of failure</td><td char=".">3.24</td><td char=".">3.18</td><td char=".">3.11</td><td char=".">3.26</td><td char=".">3.70**</td><td char=".">3.2</td><td char=".">3.89**</td><td char=".">3.35</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecog. of merit (Unworthiness)</td><td char=".">2.73</td><td char=".">3</td><td char=".">2.83</td><td char=".">2.75</td><td char=".">2.99</td><td char=".">2.9</td><td char=".">3.49**</td><td char=".">2.67</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness</td><td char=".">3.43</td><td char=".">3.53</td><td char=".">3.45</td><td char=".">3.44</td><td char=".">3.66</td><td char=".">3.57</td><td char=".">3.67</td><td char=".">3.6</td></tr><tr><td>Belonging</td><td>Fitting in</td><td char=".">3.78</td><td char=".">3.75</td><td char=".">3.56</td><td char=".">3.83*</td><td char=".">3.72</td><td char=".">3.68</td><td char=".">3.62</td><td char=".">3.75</td></tr><tr><td>Isolation</td><td char=".">2.5</td><td char=".">2.68</td><td char=".">2.77*</td><td char=".">2.47</td><td char=".">2.64</td><td char=".">2.65</td><td char=".">2.85**</td><td char=".">2.54</td></tr><tr><td>Safeness</td><td char=".">4.05</td><td char=".">4.3*</td><td char=".">3.96</td><td char=".">4.11</td><td char=".">3.51</td><td char=".">3.82*</td><td char=".">3.43</td><td char=".">3.69</td></tr><tr><td>Respect/Hospitality</td><td char=".">3.45</td><td char=".">3.39</td><td char=".">3.46</td><td char=".">3.44</td><td char=".">3.4</td><td char=".">3.25</td><td char=".">3.25</td><td char=".">3.39</td></tr><tr><td>Wellbeing</td><td>Wellbeing</td><td char=".">2.81</td><td char=".">2.97</td><td char=".">2.6</td><td char=".">2.89*</td><td char=".">2.45</td><td char=".">2.77*</td><td char=".">2.21</td><td char=".">2.72**</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>1 *Significant differences at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).</p> <ulist> <item>2 **Significant differences at the 0.01 level (two-tailed).</item> <item>3 Means comparison test adjusted by Bonferroni correction.</item> </ulist> <p>Across our sample from India, impostor feelings were statistically similar across gender, on the one hand, and sexual orientations, on the other. However, within our UK sample, impostor feelings related to fear of failure and unworthiness, on average, were significantly higher for heterosexual women and students with marginalised SOGI. Regarding belonging and wellbeing, the analysis of the Indian sample demonstrated that heterosexual students had significantly higher feelings of fitting in within STEM and university environments, as well as higher levels of wellbeing than students with marginalised SOGI. In the UK, being men, and identifying as heterosexual gave a higher sense of security (safety) in university spaces and wellbeing in contrast to women and students with marginalised SOGI, respectively. Critically, in both samples, feelings of isolation within the university were significantly higher in students with marginalised SOGI.</p> <p>That said, it is by intersecting gender and sexualities that the effect of heteronormativity over the affective experiences of STEM students can be revealed more significantly (see Table 3). By intersecting gender and sexual orientation, we could see an affective pattern favouring heterosexual men compared to men and women with marginalised SOGI, and, to a lesser degree, in contrast to heterosexual women.</p> <p>Table 3. Average intensities of experiences associated with impostor feelings, belonging and wellbeing according to SOGI Intersections.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td /><td /><td>India</td><td>UK</td></tr><tr><td>Variables</td><td>Dimensions</td><td>Women with Marginalised SOGI</td><td>Heterosexual women</td><td>Men with Marginalised SOGI</td><td>Heterosexual men</td><td>Women with Marginalised SOGI</td><td>Heterosexual women</td><td>Men with Marginalised SOGI</td><td>Heterosexual men</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Impostor Feelings</td><td>Fear of failure</td><td char=".">3.02</td><td char=".">3.28</td><td char=".">3.42</td><td char=".">3.08</td><td char=".">4.02**</td><td char=".">3.52</td><td char=".">3.58</td><td char=".">3.10</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecog. of merit (Unworthiness)</td><td char=".">2.66</td><td char=".">2.74</td><td char=".">3.40*</td><td char=".">2.83</td><td char=".">3.51**</td><td char=".">2.68</td><td char=".">3.84**</td><td char=".">2.64</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness</td><td char=".">3.41</td><td char=".">3.44</td><td char=".">3.60</td><td char=".">3.50</td><td char=".">3.75</td><td char=".">3.61</td><td char=".">3.50</td><td char=".">3.59</td></tr><tr><td>Belonging</td><td>Fitting in</td><td char=".">3.64</td><td char=".">3.81</td><td char=".">3.27</td><td char=".">3.96*</td><td char=".">3.61</td><td char=".">3.79</td><td char=".">3.67</td><td char=".">3.69</td></tr><tr><td>Isolation</td><td char=".">2.62</td><td char=".">2.47</td><td char=".">3.28*</td><td char=".">2.42</td><td char=".">2.87**</td><td char=".">2.50</td><td char=".">2.79</td><td char=".">2.61</td></tr><tr><td>Safeness</td><td char=".">3.97</td><td char=".">4.06</td><td char=".">3.92</td><td char=".">4.49*</td><td char=".">3.37</td><td char=".">3.59</td><td char=".">3.72</td><td char=".">3.85**</td></tr><tr><td>Respect/Hospitality</td><td char=".">3.57</td><td char=".">3.43</td><td char=".">3.09</td><td char=".">3.52</td><td char=".">3.24</td><td char=".">3.49</td><td char=".">3.36</td><td char=".">3.22</td></tr><tr><td>Wellbeing</td><td>Wellbeing</td><td char=".">2.56</td><td char=".">2.86</td><td char=".">2.70</td><td char=".">3.09*</td><td char=".">2.13</td><td char=".">2.64**</td><td char=".">2.48</td><td char=".">2.85**</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <ulist> <item>4 *Significant differences at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).</item> <item>5 **Significant differences at the 0.01 level (two-tailed).</item> <item>6 Means comparison Test adjusted by Bonferroni correction.</item> </ulist> <p>In our Indian sample, men with marginalised SOGI reported on average, significantly higher feelings of unworthiness and isolation compared to heterosexual men. Conversely, heterosexual men experience significantly higher levels of integration (a sense of fitting in), safety across university and STEM spaces, and overall wellbeing than both women and men with marginalised SOGI, and to a lesser degree, compared to heterosexual women.</p> <p>A closer look at the specific indicators regarding feelings of safety suggested differences worth exploring further in our Indian sample. Women and students with marginalised SOGI felt consistently less safe in student organisations, universities' sports spaces, and at night in and nearby campuses, than heterosexual students. Those spaces and temporality have been predominantly organised and symbolised by the heterosexual matrix and their associated affective economy. They help to consolidate hegemonic masculinities and ideal modes of femininity that reinforce embodied feelings of insecurity, and tend to foreclose the flourishing of students with subaltern gender and sexual identities in HE. Within this heteronormative context, the stickiness of feelings of isolation, unworthiness and fear to women and men with marginalised SOGI, in our Indian sample, is intimately associated with a diminished a sense of entitlement and agency to actively participate and engage in these diverse socio-temporal spaces.</p> <p>The above resonates with emerging research on STEM in India. In this regard, Gupta ([<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref88">29</reflink>]), in the context of elite technology institutes in India, has pointed out the ways patriarchal norms and practices are reinforced in those spaces, further excluding women from participating. Gupta highlighted that exclusion of women students from sport activities is due to the prevalence of gender stereotypes that construct sports as a "major arena of construction of masculinity" (p. 259). She also demonstrated that student organisations sustained a hegemonic masculinity by holding meetings after midnight, smoking, drinking and using derogatory language in those spaces. While Gupta's analysis points to women's and men's unequal relations of power/knowledge, we add to this a wider range of marginalised sexual orientations as central axes of affective inequalities and subordination in STEM in India. In contrast to our Indian sample, sports spaces and student organisations did not form sites of affective inequalities for UK students participating in our survey.</p> <p>In our UK sample, STEM students with marginalised SOGI have more intense impostor feelings than others. Women with marginalised SOGI, on average, felt higher levels of isolation and alienation from university than the rest of our respondents. On the other hand, heterosexual men felt, on average, safer across university spaces and with the highest levels of wellbeing compared to STEM students with marginalised SOGI.</p> <p>By closely examining the main two dimensions of impostor feelings – fear of failure and misrecognition of merits associated with unworthiness –, we identified, in our UK sample, a significant affective pattern of gendered inequalities affecting students with marginalised SOGI in contrast to heterosexual students, and especially in contrast to heterosexual men. Women with marginalised SOGI felt significantly higher levels of fear of failure, being a disappointment for others, and self-doubts than heterosexual men and women, and men with marginalised SOGI. We also identified a similar affective gendered pattern related with feelings of unworthiness. Feeling unworthy was significantly attached to students – both men and women – with marginalised SOGI compared to their heterosexual counterparts.</p> <p>It is noteworthy that the emphasis of impostor feelings on intelligence or intellectual talent that transpires in affects of unworthiness, self-doubts or disappointment resonates with the literature about gender inequalities in STEM (Riley, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref89">44</reflink>]; Rohde et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref90">45</reflink>]). Regarding impostor feelings, in particular, Slank ([<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref91">48</reflink>]) associates a culture of genius in academic environments that, in turn, reinforces ideas of intelligence as fixed with deeper feelings of impostorism. In our study, self-perceptions of being less intelligent were significantly higher in heterosexual women and students with marginalised SOGI than in heterosexual men.</p> <p>While, in general, in our samples in India and the UK ethnic backgrounds or castes did not show significant differences according to the distribution of feelings, some specific and moderate differences are worth describing. For our cases in India, we found that the feeling of alienation – as a core indicator of belonging – is higher in women students from lower castes than in women not belonging to those groups. No significant differences were found between men. We have also identified that the feeling of alienation is also present – albeit mildly – in students identified with marginalised SOGI that are part of lower castes than in their heterosexual counterparts. These students from lower castes and marginalised SOGI had the highest scores in alienation in contrast to all other students. However, the limited number of cases we had at the triple intersection of gender, sexual orientation and castes did not allow us to further our exploration.</p> <p>In our UK sample, we could not find significant differences regarding IP, wellbeing or belonging across students' ethnic backgrounds, nor when they were intersected with gender or sexual identities. However, some caveats must be considered. First, the cases of students identified as black or mixed backgrounds were not enough across the gender and sexualities spectrum, which impedes the undertaking of further analysis. Second, the diversity of specific backgrounds, especially from international students – born outside the UK – was significant – above 30% of our UK sample. This diversity may ease differences between these feelings.</p> <p>Overall, impostor feelings troubled more intensively students with marginalised SOGI. Moreover, when we intersect gender with marginalised sexual orientations, fear of failure and unworthiness, as well as related feelings of lower wellbeing and belonging, such as isolation and alienation, are revealed as strongly gendered. These results also point out the relationship between these affective inequalities and the discourses of success and merit within which these affects are embedded. The affective-discursive assemblage forming IP becomes firmly attached to heteronorms. They make possible the dominance and privilege of heterosexual men in STEM spaces in both countries' samples.</p> <p>Following Ahmed ([<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref92">5</reflink>]), we interpret these experiences as the heteronormative (and racialised) production of "non-attunement"; that is, the generation of sustained climates or atmospheres brought about by predominantly heterosexual men who historically have dominated STEM spaces, making students with marginalised SOGI feel "strangers", "at the edges" (Ahmed, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref93">5</reflink>], p. 18). If attunement refers to collective emotions in specific fields that connect people with others around, the heteronormative production of "non-attunement" poses the problem of "how we can be in a world with others where we are not in a responsive relation, where we do not tend to 'pick up' on how they feel" (Ahmed, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref94">5</reflink>], p. 18). Yet, being responsive requires work of attunement. As we see next, students who carry out the emotional labour of being responsive to the collective moods and others are, paradoxically, those with marginalised SOGI.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-12">The polyvalence of impostor feeling: entrepreneurial fakeness, belonging and wellbeing</hd> <p>Impostor feelings are commonly viewed as indirect indexes of a lower sense of belonging and wellbeing. However, our analyses based on multiple correlations suggested that it cannot be seen just from this angle (see Tables 4 and 5).</p> <p>Table 4. Correlation matrix. Impostor phenomenon, belonging and wellbeing dimensions by sexual orientation/gender identifications. Indian sample.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td>Gender/sexual orientation</td><td>IP</td><td>Belonging</td><td>Wellbeing</td></tr><tr><td>Fit in</td><td>Alienation</td><td>Safeness</td><td>Connectedness and respect</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Women with marginalised SOGI</td><td>Fear of failure</td><td char=".">−.297</td><td char=".">.275</td><td char=".">−.236</td><td char=".">−.287</td><td char=".">−.387*</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecog. of merit (Unworthiness)</td><td char=".">−.049</td><td char=".">.122</td><td char=".">.105</td><td char=".">−.052</td><td char=".">−.245</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness</td><td char=".">.354*</td><td char=".">−.364*</td><td char=".">.132</td><td char=".">.205</td><td char=".">.451**</td></tr><tr><td>Heterosexual women</td><td>Fear of failure</td><td char=".">−.407**</td><td char=".">.467**</td><td char=".">−.215**</td><td char=".">−.433**</td><td char=".">−.452**</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecog. of merit (Unworthiness)</td><td char=".">−.258**</td><td char=".">.402**</td><td char=".">−.030</td><td char=".">−.175*</td><td char=".">−.126</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness</td><td char=".">.380**</td><td char=".">−.213**</td><td char=".">.128</td><td char=".">.263**</td><td char=".">.361**</td></tr><tr><td>Men with marginalised SOGI</td><td>Fear of failure</td><td char=".">.277</td><td char=".">.552</td><td char=".">.361</td><td char=".">.258</td><td char=".">.089</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecog. of merit (Unworthiness)</td><td char=".">.130</td><td char=".">.402</td><td char=".">.142</td><td char=".">.043</td><td char=".">.254</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness</td><td char=".">.430</td><td char=".">.238</td><td char=".">.304</td><td char=".">.392</td><td char=".">.443</td></tr><tr><td>Heterosexual men</td><td>Fear of failure</td><td char=".">−.268</td><td char=".">.528**</td><td char=".">−.257</td><td char=".">−.326</td><td char=".">−.289</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecog. of merit (Unworthiness)</td><td char=".">.132</td><td char=".">.263</td><td char=".">.177</td><td char=".">.279</td><td char=".">.398</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness</td><td char=".">.059</td><td char=".">.141</td><td char=".">−.154</td><td char=".">.063</td><td char=".">.133</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <ulist> <item>7 *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).</item> <item>8 **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed).</item> </ulist> <p>Table 5. Correlation matrix. Impostor phenomenon, belonging and wellbeing dimensions by sexual orientation/gender identifications. UK sample.</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead valign="bottom"><tr><td>Gender/sexual orientation</td><td>IP</td><td>Belonging</td><td>Wellbeing</td></tr><tr><td>Fit in</td><td>Alienation</td><td>Safeness</td><td>Connectedness and respect</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Women with marginalised SOGI</td><td>Fear of failure</td><td char=".">−.383**</td><td char=".">.295*</td><td char=".">−0.114</td><td char=".">−.331*</td><td char=".">−.517**</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecog. of merit (Unworthiness)</td><td char=".">−.405**</td><td char=".">.301*</td><td char=".">−0.125</td><td char=".">−.289*</td><td char=".">−.403**</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness</td><td char=".">0.233</td><td char=".">−.284*</td><td char=".">0.218</td><td char=".">0.127</td><td char=".">−0.039</td></tr><tr><td>Heterosexual women</td><td>Fear of failure</td><td char=".">−.408**</td><td char=".">.377**</td><td char=".">−0.080</td><td char=".">−.356**</td><td char=".">−.360**</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecog. of merit (Unworthiness)</td><td char=".">−.318**</td><td char=".">.431**</td><td char=".">−0.080</td><td char=".">−.309**</td><td char=".">−.323**</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness</td><td char=".">0.007</td><td char=".">−0.065</td><td char=".">−0.043</td><td char=".">0.160</td><td char=".">0.038</td></tr><tr><td>Men with marginalised SOGI</td><td>Fear of failure</td><td char=".">−.599*</td><td char=".">.734**</td><td char=".">−0.530</td><td char=".">−.663**</td><td char=".">−.704**</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecog. of merit (Unworthiness)</td><td char=".">−0.258</td><td char=".">0.465</td><td char=".">−0.384</td><td char=".">−0.373</td><td char=".">−.552*</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness</td><td char=".">.591*</td><td char=".">−.525*</td><td char=".">0.392</td><td char=".">0.446</td><td char=".">.540*</td></tr><tr><td>Heterosexual men</td><td>Fear of failure</td><td char=".">−0.106</td><td char=".">.376**</td><td char=".">−0.057</td><td char=".">−0.126</td><td char=".">−0.259</td></tr><tr><td>Misrecog. of merit (Unworthiness)</td><td char=".">−0.189</td><td char=".">.363**</td><td char=".">−0.138</td><td char=".">−0.227</td><td char=".">−0.221</td></tr><tr><td>Entrepreneurial fakeness</td><td char=".">.270*</td><td char=".">0.073</td><td char=".">0.216</td><td char=".">0.138</td><td char=".">0.081</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <ulist> <item>9 *Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed).</item> <item>10 **Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed).</item> </ulist> <p>While fear of failure and misrecognition of merits are, in general, negatively correlated with different aspects of belonging and wellbeing, we found that heterosexual women and marginalised SOGI, in our Indian sample, were more significantly impacted by these correlations. The privilege of heterosexual men students was more salient in our UK sample. For all but them, higher levels of impostor feelings were negatively correlated with belonging and wellbeing. Crucially, in both samples, the pervasive operations of impostor feelings over the affective conditions of agency (wellbeing) – expressed in feelings of cheerfulness, relaxation, vigour, freshness and restfulness –, impacted negatively over heterosexual women and students with marginalised SOGI, leaving untouched the wellbeing of heterosexual male students. These gendered correlations configure a fertile ground in STEM for the unfolding affective inequalities.</p> <p>In our Indian and UK samples, our analyses showed an opposite statistical correlation of entrepreneurial fakeness – successfully faking knowledge and competencies – with belonging and wellbeing. This was especially the case for heterosexual women, and men and women with marginalised SOGI. This negative correlation reveals that faking knowledge and competencies is instrumental in coping with issues of belonging and wellbeing in STEM as a dominant heteronormative and patriarchal territory. In our Indian sample (see Table 4), faking it (given the impression that one is more competent than one really is) not only decreases the sense of alienation in heterosexual women and women with marginalised SOGI but also increases their sense of connection and respect, and wellbeing in the case of the latter. In our UK sample (see Table 5), a similar pattern was found for the case of women and men with marginalised SOGI.</p> <p>These findings problematise authenticity – or the degree to which academics are true to themselves – as a core element enabling belonging in academic environments (Cristea & Abraham Babajide, [<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref95">22</reflink>]). In our study, we read the capacity of faking knowledge or competencies from different angles.</p> <p>First, we read this as entrepreneurial engagements with knowledge and professional identity. Within the affective context of success and merit, the entrepreneurial subjectification reinforces superficial engagements with STEM knowledges while working as an overall strategy for belonging. Intellectual authenticity may not be a compelling value within pervasive competitive and meritocratic dominant masculine academic environments. This, in turn, may reinforce the heteronormative structure of feelings in STEM fields, despite the feelings of agency that some individuals embody. An entrepreneur embodies not just the strategies of the capitalist enterprise but also a survival-oriented and competitive subjectivity, willing to bypass deeper engagements with knowledge to belong to a space of recognition. This entrepreneurial willingness, however, reveals more about the interference of this affective inequality in the relationship between these students and STEM knowledge than it does about an unethical disposition.</p> <p>Second, following Butler ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref96">16</reflink>]), this can also be read as resistance against marginalisation and misrecognition by performatively interpreting and appropriating the gendered entrepreneurial norms to show STEM capabilities. Therefore, we read this as a paradoxical and successful contestation of the exclusionary heteronorms by insisting on acts of pretending. The paradox is that while this strategy may reinforce dominant norms in STEM cultures that are more integrated in heterosexual men subjects, they carve out a space of belonging, easing alienation and heightening a sense of connection and respect for students with marginalised SOGI.</p> <p>Lastly, and going back to Ahmed's ([<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref97">5</reflink>]) theorisation of "attunement" as emotional labour, we see these dispositions towards "faking" for belonging as another expression of affective inequality. Understanding the work of attunement that students with marginalised SOGI deploy as emotional labour implies acknowledging that it is a responsibilising labour involving reading and appropriation of the "right way to feel in a certain situation", thus a way of "becoming responsive not only to the moods of others but to what the situation requires or demands" ([<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref98">5</reflink>], p. 21). This unequal work of responsiveness over the shoulders of students at the margins of heteronormativity is also the mirror of the unresponsiveness on the part of others about the emotional hardship these students have.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-13">Conclusions</hd> <p>In this article, we have conducted a more heterodox analysis of affective inequalities in STEM in India and UK HE contexts. We have combined statistical methods and, particularly, factor analysis of IP to make its main latent dimensions visible, with an affective-discursive reading of the statements that compose it. This enabled us to interpret and extract the main affects underpinning IP experiences and the dominant discourses they were associated with. As a result, IP emerged not as a psychological problem to recognise our merits but as a gendered assemblage that includes fear, disappointment, self-doubts and unworthiness mobilised by discourses of failure and success, merit and entrepreneurialism.</p> <p>Our analyses showed that IP is an experience significantly embodied by STEM students with marginalised SOGI and strongly associated with lower levels of wellbeing and belonging. By drawing on Butler's and Ahmed's overarching concepts of heterosexual matrix and affective economy, respectively, we interpreted these patterns as affective inequalities associated with the construction and maintenance of subordinated positions of subjects at the margins or outside the heteronorms that govern STEM spaces. It was just by conducting an intersectional analysis between gender and sexual orientations – beyond heteronormative sexualities – that the influence of heteronormativity and its fearful affective economy over students with marginalised SOGI was visible. In our intersectional analysis, we also identified higher levels of alienation in women from lower castes in our Indian sample. However, racial axes of inequalities were significantly less prominent in our analyses than gender and sexual orientation. We are mindful that this can be more related to the limits of our data than to the inexistence of racism. Moreover, this suggests we must make more efforts to illuminate these complex intersections, including focused methodological endeavours to make visible the experiences of transgender subjects from different sexual orientations and racialised backgrounds. This is even more urgent within a context where HE policy risks conflating gender and race, privileging the former over the latter, which may profoundly impact the reproduction of white – and Brahmin – privilege in HE (Bhopal & Henderson, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref99">8</reflink>]).</p> <p>Our analysis evidenced, as Butler has insisted, that in contexts historically and reiteratively organised by heteronormativity such as STEM, students with marginalised SOGI are affected by the embodiment of fearful and tired subjectivities and feared spaces, and in contrast to the ways entitlements, agency, legitimacy and value get attached to heterosexual men in STEM. The "Other", be it the dominant male and heterosexual body or the expectations students feel over them, was significantly experienced by the students with marginalised SOGI as sources of threats associated with self-doubts and fear of disappointing others.</p> <p>Despite these generalised inequalities, we found some relevant differences in the working of the heterosexual matrix and its affective economy in both samples. In India, there was a clearer marginalisation of our students with marginalised SOGI from student organisations, sports sites and the right to circulate feeling safe at night. This marginalisation was associated with experiences of fear and un-belonging. In this context, heterosexual men and the spaces they monopolise make heteronormativity much more entrenched in overall university life beyond STEM, which shrinks the opportunities for them to find livable spaces in HE. In contrast, in the UK, these spaces were not significant for these students' affective experiences of inequalities. However, despite the arguable prevalence of a more liberal notion of inclusion and diversity, dominant masculinities still underpin experiences within the STEM fields.</p> <p>In spite of the negative emotional impacts of heteronormativity, we observed more ambivalent effects regarding students with marginalised SOGI's tendency to fake competencies in STEM contexts. While this, at first glance, appeared as entrepreneurial superficial engagement with knowledge, we revealed its positive impact on belonging and wellbeing for these students. Following Butler ([<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref100">16</reflink>]), faking competencies and knowledge become a form of resistance against exclusion and towards legitimacy. These acts of pretending are not merely expressions of IP but signal an embodied agency that challenges the freedom/domination dichotomy, capable of offering experiences that may challenge the masculine and heteronormative idealisation of STEM. At the same time, in line with Ahmed's ([<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref101">5</reflink>]) reflections on attunement, this needs to be recognised as emotional labour that reflects a pursuit of belonging and survival as legitimate knowers in response to the unresponsiveness of others towards their experiences.</p> <p>From these analyses, important questions remain to be explored. How do these affective inequalities and their resistance impact on learning, STEM knowledges and pedagogies? How are these affective inequalities related with students with marginalised SOGI's aspirations regarding the labour market? By considering in depth the national and local HE and STEM institutional contexts, how does the organisation of these institutions shape heteronormativity and affective experiences across diverse gendered subjects? We hope to have contributed to thinking about these and posing other questions, and to deepening our awareness and understanding of inequalities through the lens of affects in heteronormative contexts of knowledge formation.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-14">Acknowledgements</hd> <p>The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of the journal for their generous advice and feedback, which has enabled us to greatly improve the paper. We would also like to thank Dr Pauline Clance for the permission to use the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale. In addition, we would like to thank Catherine Lido (University of Glasgow) for leading on the survey design; co-investigators Jane Umutoni (University of Glasgow), Josephine Malonza (University of Rwanda), and Manish Thakur (Indian Institute of Management Calcutta); former team member Emma Seddon; and advisory board members Suchorita Chattopadhayay, Kunal Chattopadhayay (Jadavpur University) Marie-Chantal Cyulinyana and Jolly Rubagiza (University of Rwanda), for their contribution to the project survey design. We would like to thank also all the students who took part in the study. Finally, we want to take this opportunity to pay homage to one of the authors of this work, Srabani Maitra. She was a Professor in Sociology of Adult and Vocational Education in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow, before sadly passing away at the end of 2023. She was and remains a much-cherished sister, friend and colleague, and will long be remembered for, amongst many things, her inspirational work in the areas of vocational education, workplace skill training, transnational migration, race/racism and decolonisation.</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-15">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <hd id="AN0191102433-16">Supplemental Material</hd> <p>Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2024.2438877.</p> <ref id="AN0191102433-17"> <title> Notes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref25" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> We used Ngram to see the occurrence of the terms Impostor/er Phenomenon and Impostor/er Syndrome within books written in English from 1980 to 2019. See https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Imposter+Syndrome%2CImposter+Phenomenon%2CImpostor+Syndrome%2CImpostor+phenomenon%26year%5fstart=1980%26year%5fend=2019%26corpus=26%26smoothing=5%26case%5finsensitive=true. Searched in 29/08/2022.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref19" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Critically, for our context, pathologising processes of queer people are deeply entangled with legacies of British colonial rules in India, which located not just homosexual relations as a criminal activity but queer subjects as uncivilised, primitive, a case of arrested development, that, in turn, legitimated the abuses and marginalisation against them (Rao, [41]).</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref10" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> The survey was implemented in Rwanda, India, and the UK. The initial findings and their validity were discussed with the team's researchers from the three countries. The low rate of responses regarding gender and sexual identities from Rwandan students, alongside Rwandan colleagues' expression of doubts and discomfort with the Rwandan students' responses regarding their understandings of the categories relating to sexual and gender identities, led us, as a team, to feel that it was not ethically sustainable nor empirically rigorous to include them in this analysis.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib4" idref="ref52" type="bt">4</bibl> <bibtext> Russell Group Universities is an association of 24 UK public, research-intensive universities created in 1994. It is a space that works as a "brand of excellence", as a membership of a space of elite power that represents national and global prestige and quality as well as global and national hierarchies in the field of universities competition.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib5" idref="ref75" type="bt">5</bibl> <bibtext> Four as transgender and nine did not state their gender identification.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib6" idref="ref70" type="bt">6</bibl> <bibtext> According to the Pew Research Center ([40]) while in the UK, 73% of adults are in favour of same-sex marriage being legal, in India, 43% of adults oppose it.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib7" idref="ref33" type="bt">7</bibl> <bibtext> For a detailed exposition of the PCA, see Table 1 in the supplementary section.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib8" idref="ref80" type="bt">8</bibl> <bibtext> Cronbach's alpha for each index was over 0.80 across country samples.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib9" idref="ref29" type="bt">9</bibl> <bibtext> Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) for each of these dimensions were over 0.90. 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Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Affective Inequalities beyond Heteronormativity. Impostor Feelings, Wellbeing and Belonging in STEM Students in the UK and India
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Daniel+Leyton%22">Daniel Leyton</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2472-9835">0000-0003-2472-9835</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Barbara+Read%22">Barbara Read</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8125-8550">0000-0002-8125-8550</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Bonnie+Slade%22">Bonnie Slade</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9737-7004">0000-0001-9737-7004</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Zyra+Evangelista%22">Zyra Evangelista</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6980-8281">0000-0002-6980-8281</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Srabani+Maitra%22">Srabani Maitra</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1840-1294">0000-0003-1840-1294</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Saikat+Maitra%22">Saikat Maitra</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4289-4255">0000-0002-4289-4255</externalLink>)
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  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Educational+Review%22"><i>Educational Review</i></searchLink>. 2026 78(1):39-60.
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  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 22
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2026
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Higher+Education%22">Higher Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Postsecondary+Education%22">Postsecondary Education</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22College+Students%22">College Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22LGBTQ+People%22">LGBTQ People</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Sex%22">Sex</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22STEM+Education%22">STEM Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Minority+Group+Students%22">Minority Group Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Welfare%22">Student Welfare</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Sense+of+Belonging%22">Sense of Belonging</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Self+Concept%22">Self Concept</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Negative+Attitudes%22">Negative Attitudes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Psychological+Patterns%22">Psychological Patterns</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Expectation%22">Expectation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Behavior+Standards%22">Behavior Standards</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Social+Behavior%22">Social Behavior</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22United+Kingdom%22">United Kingdom</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22India%22">India</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1080/00131911.2024.2438877
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0013-1911<br />1465-3397
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: STEM in higher education has been framed as a central site to boost the knowledge-based economy. Within this context, gender equality and mental health have been of primary concern. However, the affective inequalities experienced by STEM students with marginalised "sexual orientations and gender identities" -- SOGI -- remain underexplored. In this article, we drew on Butler's work on the heterosexual matrix and Ahmed's gendered notion of affective economy to analyse students' impostor phenomenon experience in relation to wellbeing and belonging. Based on a sample of STEM students from Indian and UK universities and articulating statistical analyses with feminist affective politics of interpretation, we identified affective inequalities that were significantly intense in marginalised SOGI students. These inequalities were indexed in higher levels of impostor feelings associated with fear, disappointment, self-doubt and unworthiness; lower levels of wellbeing; and precarious sense of belonging. Importantly, when we intersected gender and sexual orientations, these experiences of affective inequalities became more visible. We highlight the relevance of both taking heteronormativity from an affective lens and going beyond assumed heterosexualities in the study of inequalities in STEM fields in higher education.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2026
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1502722
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1502722
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      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1080/00131911.2024.2438877
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      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 22
        StartPage: 39
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: College Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: LGBTQ People
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Sex
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: STEM Education
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Minority Group Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Welfare
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Sense of Belonging
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Self Concept
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Negative Attitudes
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Psychological Patterns
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      – SubjectFull: Expectation
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      – SubjectFull: Behavior Standards
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      – SubjectFull: Social Behavior
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      – SubjectFull: United Kingdom
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      – SubjectFull: India
        Type: general
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      – TitleFull: Affective Inequalities beyond Heteronormativity. Impostor Feelings, Wellbeing and Belonging in STEM Students in the UK and India
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