Kea Saper- Department of Sociology, University of California San Diego, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, United States
As American universities expand online course offerings in pursuit of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging goals, important questions remain about how such shifts affect underrepresented students’ educational experiences. This study examines how online learning environments shape Latinx undergraduates’ sense of belonging, opportunities to build social capital, and ultimately, human capital accumulation. Drawing on interviews with 45 participants at an Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution during the COVID-19 pandemic, findings reveal that the rapid expansion of online learning without corresponding investments in pedagogy or infrastructure eroded students’ peer networks, weakened student-faculty relationships, and isolated students academically. These missed social connections disrupted both engagement with course material and access to institutional knowledge, ultimately compromising human capital development. The study illustrates that while online learning may increase access, it often sacrifices the relational dimensions of higher education that are crucial for academic success. The study underscores the need for substantial investment in online infrastructure and pedagogy to ensure social capital opportunities in online classrooms, and calls for a reimagining of online pedagogy to center connection and inclusion, particularly for historically marginalized students in higher education.
1 Introduction
In recent years, and especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, American universities have accelerated the expansion of online course offerings. This shift is frequently framed as a tool for improving access and advancing institutional commitments to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) (Taff and Clifton, 2022; Liera and Desir, 2023). For Latinx and other underrepresented students, online education is often positioned as a flexible, cost-effective pathway to degree attainment. Yet critical questions remain about how such students experience inclusion and belonging in online classrooms, and how these dynamics shape their academic success.
The COVID-19 pandemic is an important moment in shaping these dynamics and offers us a window into possible online futures. Research has shown how the rapid shift to online learning disrupted learning outcomes, deepened existing inequities, and disproportionately affected Latinx, first-generation, and low-income students (Garcia-Morales et al., 2021; Tate and Warschauer, 2022). In hastily implemented online courses, students faced inconsistent course design, varying levels of instructor training in online pedagogy, and limited access to academic and social supports. Such conditions made it more difficult for students to sustain academic engagement, build supportive relationships, and access institutional resources. These challenges highlight how relational and structural aspects of higher education can be strained when online learning environments are not supported by adequate pedagogical training or institutional infrastructure.
This study examines the lived experiences of Latinx students navigating online learning at an Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution, four-year public university on the West Coast during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on interviews with 45 Latinx undergraduate students, the study focuses on three interrelated dimensions of students’ educational experience: belonging, defined as their felt connection to classroom community; social capital, or the peer and faculty relationships that provide access to institutional resources and support; and human capital, or the skills and knowledge acquired through coursework.
Research has long debated whether online education expands access or imposes hidden costs. Some studies highlight its promise as a flexible, scalable alternative to in-person instruction (Tate and Warschauer, 2022; McIntyre, 2022), while others document enduring gaps in engagement, learning, and persistence (Yan and Pourdavood, 2024; Harper et al., 2024). Importantly, most work has centered on learning outcomes (Long et al., 2023; Davidson et al., 2024), with far less attention to the relational and affective dimensions of online higher education. Yet belonging and social capital are central to academic motivation, engagement, and achievement (Strayhorn, 2012, 2020; Pedler et al., 2021), and they are often cultivated through informal peer and faculty interactions more common in in-person settings (Allen et al., 2024; Kassab et al., 2024).
Rather than treating the pandemic as an exceptional, one-time disruption, this paper uses the period as a case that reveals what occurs when online learning environments expand without sufficient institutional investment. During the pandemic, students contended with limited pedagogical preparation, variable course quality, and greatly reduced opportunities for relational connection (Meng et al., 2024). The conditions under which students learned during the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate broader challenges that persist in online education when it is not adequately supported.
Findings from this study show that Latinx students’ sense of belonging and capacity to build social capital were significantly undermined in rapidly implemented online classrooms. These patterns highlight structural tensions in online education that may in some cases extend beyond the pandemic. As universities normalize and expand virtual learning, ensuring equitable access will require more than enrollment: it will demand pedagogical approaches and institutional supports that foster community, connection, and student success.
With this context in mind, this study investigates how Latinx undergraduates made sense of online learning environments at an Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution on the West Coast. Specifically, it examines whether and how key relational processes, such as weak-tie interactions, copresence, and collective effervescence, that are often taken for granted in face-to-face classrooms were disrupted online.
To explore these dynamics, the study draws on interviews with 45 students to address the following research questions:
1. How did Latinx undergraduates describe their sense of belonging during emergency remote learning?
2. How did students’ opportunities to build and maintain social capital change in online learning environments?
3. How did the absence of copresence shape students’ academic engagement and motivation?
2 Materials and methods
2.1 Data source and research design
This study employs a qualitative research design, drawing on interview data from 45 Latinx undergraduate students at West Coast University (a pseudonym), a public Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution where 20.9 percent of students identified as Chicano/Latino. Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institutions are defined as institutions with between 15 percent and 24 percent Latinx FTE undergraduates (HACU, 2024).
Data were collected between February and April 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a period when many institutions remained primarily online. This moment provided a critical window into the challenges of sustaining engagement in hastily implemented online courses. While the project originated with a focus on the Latinx student experience in United States institutions that privilege White, middle- and upper-class norms (Jack, 2019a; Covarrubias and Valle, 2023), it is presented here as a qualitative case study focused on how students made sense of belonging and relational experiences during this period of widespread emergency online learning.
2.2 Recruitment strategy
Participants were recruited through a multipronged strategy. Undergraduate advisors, deans of student affairs, student organizations, and campus resource centers disseminated a Qualtrics survey link to students. The survey included two 5-point Likert-scale questions assessing students’ general sense of belonging and perceived peer connectedness. These questions were used primarily to inform interview prompts and are summarized descriptively in this article to provide context for the qualitative findings rather than subjected to formal statistical analysis, as the primary function of the survey was recruitment rather than systematic data collection.
The survey included basic demographic questions (e.g., major, year in school, transfer status, gender) to ensure a diverse pool of interview participants. Of the 210 students who completed the survey, 45 participated in interviews. The recruitment process continued until thematic saturation was reached. All participation was voluntary, and informed consent was obtained verbally. To protect confidentiality, pseudonyms are used and identifying details were removed during transcription.
2.3 Data collection
Because the survey served as a demographic and recruitment tool, it did not generate substantive data that required formal analysis. The two educational-experience questions included in the survey were used only to provide background context for approaching each interview and to gauge students’ general sense of belonging prior to the qualitative portion of the study. The analytic focus of this article rests entirely on the interview data.
Interviews were semi-structured and focused on students’ family backgrounds, educational trajectories, transitions into university life, and experiences of belonging. Although the interview guide did not explicitly center online learning, students organically referenced online courses throughout their narratives, underscoring the salience of online instruction during the pandemic. All interviews used the same semi-structured interview guide. To support transparency and enable replication, the full interview guide is included in Appendix A, and substantive survey questions in Appendix B.
Interviews were conducted via Zoom, lasted approximately 1 h, and were audio-recorded with participant consent. Recordings were transcribed verbatim and checked for accuracy by the research team. Eight trained undergraduate research assistants assisted with recruitment, interviews, and transcription.
2.4 Sample characteristics
Table 1 presents descriptive characteristics of the 45 Latinx undergraduates who participated in the study.
Table 1. Participant characteristics (N = 45).
As shown in Table 1, the sample reflected substantial educational and socioeconomic diversity typical of Latinx undergraduates at public research universities. All participants self-identified as Hispanic, Latinx, or Latina/o, and most were first-generation college students (80%). Immigration-related diversity was also notable: 10 students were immigrants to the United States, and 35 had at least one immigrant parent. Gender composition also skewed heavily toward women (76%), aligning with national trends in which women constitute a majority of Hispanic undergraduate students in the United States (Nam and Bryant, 2025).
Students varied in their educational trajectories and labor-force participation. Twelve participants (27%) were transfer students, and 28 (62%) were employed while enrolled. Among working students, 11 worked 10 h or fewer per week, 12 worked between 10 and 20 h, and 5 worked more than 20 h weekly.
Participants also represented a wide range of academic majors across the social sciences, natural sciences and health fields, engineering and applied sciences, and the humanities. These characteristics provide important context for understanding students’ online learning experiences and the structural conditions under which they navigated their courses.
2.5 Coding approach and analytic strategy
All qualitative transcripts were uploaded to Dedoose (version 8.x; SocioCultural Research Consultants, LLC, 2024), a software program widely used in current mixed-methods and qualitative research (Soicher et al., 2024), for coding and thematic analysis. An initial round of open coding was conducted to identify emergent themes, followed by focused coding that consolidated codes into analytic categories related to belonging, social capital, and online learning. Undergraduate research assistants participated in intercoder checks, with discrepancies resolved through team discussion and refinement of the codebook.
While the structure of the interview guide informed many initial codes, the repeated, unsolicited references to online learning required a more inductive orientation. This meant returning to transcripts to trace how students framed belonging in relation to their experiences of online education. Thematic clusters were then constructed to capture recurring dynamics such as disconnection from peers, distance from instructors, and the individualized nature of online learning. These clusters illuminate how students understood their experiences as part of broader relational and educational processes.
3 Results
To contextualize students’ interview responses, the Results begin with descriptive findings from the two preliminary survey questions. These questions capture students’ baseline perceptions of institutional support and peer connectedness during online learning. Table 2 presents the distribution of responses.
Table 2. Responses to preliminary survey questions (N = 45).
Students’ responses to the perceived institutional support question clustered around moderate agreement, suggesting that most felt WCU met their basic needs as learners. In contrast, responses to the peer connectedness question were far more dispersed, with nearly half of the sample reporting some level of disconnection from their peers. Only a small minority described feeling strongly connected. These survey results indicate that many students were already experiencing weakened peer networks and limited interaction within the online environment itself at the time of data collection. As such, these descriptive patterns provide critical context for interpreting students’ interview narratives, particularly their discussions of belonging, isolation, and the relational challenges they faced while learning online.
All 45 students participated in semi-structured interviews that followed a common interview guide. Although interviewers allowed for natural conversational variation, all participants were asked the same core questions about belonging, peer relationships, institutional support, and their experiences in classrooms. The thematic findings presented below reflect patterns reported across the full set of interviews; individual quotations illustrate experiences that were widely shared among participants rather than isolated cases.
3.1 Disconnect between students and peers
Across interviews, students consistently emphasized the role of peer relationships in shaping their sense of belonging, noting that online learning environments constrained their ability to form both social and academic connections. This theme emerged widely across the sample, and students’ reflections illustrate how online formats altered the peer interactions that typically facilitate social support and human capital development.
3.1.1 Weak ties and casual friendships
Most students reported that in the absence of everyday, low-stakes interactions, they felt they had limited opportunities to develop supportive peer networks, and their belonging in classrooms was compromised. Students frequently described how much harder it was to form casual connections online. Prior research suggests that under certain conditions online platforms can sustain meaningful peer learning communities (Zimmerman et al., 2020), but students in this study rarely experienced such interaction. In physical classrooms weak ties were established by spontaneous activities such as sitting next to someone in class, exchanging a quick comment, or walking to the dining hall together. Weak ties often provided both social comfort and academic support. When these ties disappeared, students described learning as more isolating and less enjoyable.
Sara explained how online classes prevented her from making those short-term, course-specific friendships that made studying more engaging:
“When you have people you could study with in class, you make friends from your class. Even though you're just friends for that specific class, it's nice to study with people and bounce ideas off of each other and for it to kind of be fun to discuss versus now I can't really discuss any concept or idea with anyone.”
Her account highlights the practical and affective value of weak ties: they offered a way to make coursework collaborative, not just solitary. Without them, she felt stuck studying alone.
David echoed this sense of loss but emphasized how online platforms made even basic interaction feel “fake”:
“Before this, I was very interactive with a lot of students, I could talk to anybody. Now I feel like I can barely talk to anybody, especially if their camera’s not on, my camera’s not on, like—this—I feel like it’s really weird. I can barely make friends now. I used to love making friends. I’m not really like talkative anymore. I feel like face-to-face discussions are more engaging. Me talking to a person face-to-face, I feel like I could say whatever I want to and actually connect to them. Through Zoom, I feel like I can’t really connect to people because I mostly don’t want to show my face a lot of the time and it feels like, not real. It feels fake.”
For David, the shift online fundamentally changed his behavior: once outgoing, he became hesitant and quiet. Not being able to see other students’ faces created a sense of distance, and he no longer felt like he could “really connect.”
Other students described the same craving for connection but the frustration of not being able to achieve it. Ariana put it simply:
“I crave connection now. I want to make friends, I want to get to know people through Zoom, and it’s so difficult to make friends through remote learning.”
Angela elaborated on how this isolation reshaped her sense of what it meant to be in a class:
“I didn’t get a sense of actually going to a class. I didn't know anybody from class, and I was scared to like to message someone, like ‘hey I'm in your class blah blah blah like what's going on?’, so. I don't know, it felt more… it felt really weird in a way. You know when you're in a class like you're supposed to feel the sense of like being in a group, but [online], it was more like individualistic. I didn't have anyone to like talk to about what was going on, so that was weird.”
Angela’s hesitation to reach out reveals the added effort required to build ties online. Instead of being facilitated by the classroom environment, forming relationships now depended on students’ willingness to initiate what felt like awkward, individual overtures. For her, the result was an individualistic experience of learning that lacked the group feel she expected from college.
These accounts reflected a common pattern in the data: rather than spontaneous, effortless connections, attempts at friendship or collaboration online often felt awkward or taxing, and many students indicated that they eventually opted out. Participants commonly described the resulting sense of isolation as making coursework feel heavier and less rewarding.
3.1.2 Group learning and study spaces
A substantial share of students explained that online learning environments disrupted collaborative practices that ordinarily support academic engagement and motivation. Alongside the loss of casual friendships, many participants described how online formats disrupted group learning. Study groups that once felt natural and energizing often became stilted or nonexistent in virtual classrooms.
Elena explained that while she had once relied on study groups, online versions felt flat and unproductive:
“I don't go to study groups because it's different [online], no one talks in study groups. Whereas if you were in the library and you met up with someone or sat next to someone that would work.”
Her account reflects a broader pattern: students found that the informal conversation and collaborative spirit that sustained study groups in person was largely absent online.
Michaela added that online learning created barriers to forming study groups in the first place:
“I feel like if you didn't have friends taking that class already, [being online] just made it a little bit harder to have a study group for the course. So I think, it just made it a little bit harder trying to understand the material that was given.”
Michaela’s comment underscores how pre-existing strong ties could help some students maintain collaboration, but those without such ties often struggled alone.
For others, even when small groups were organized during class time, participation was minimal. Catalina described how online breakout rooms often fell silent:
“Only like five people showed up. So, a lot of time, like the people that showed up, they hadn't really done the readings, or even watched the past lectures, so they were like lost so it's just really weird to like strike up a conversation with them, basically anytime you get into a breakout room and it's just quiet.”
Her experience shows how the absence of preparation and the awkwardness of online formats combined to discourage meaningful dialogue.
Luna voiced the academic cost of these missed interactions. She identified herself as someone who thrives through exchange and challenge with others:
“I'm a group learner. I love being able to learn from people and also have them question me and I'm like, ‘That's a good question. Let me think about it.’ And then being able to challenge yourself in that way. So yeah, I think that's been my challenge because I'm like, I don't learn like this.”
For students like Luna, who relied on conversation as a central part of learning, online classes stripped away the collaborative process that deepened understanding.
Across the sample, students noted how group learning shifted from a shared, relational activity to a more fragmented, solitary one. Online study groups lacked the spontaneity, accountability, and support that characterized in-person collaboration, leaving many to navigate coursework more independently.
3.1.3 Collective effervescence and shared excitement
Many students also discussed the absence of energy and excitement that typically came from learning alongside others in shared physical spaces. What Durkheim (1912) called collective effervescence, the sense of being part of something larger and feeling carried by the group, was difficult to replicate online. Recent empirical work has reaffirmed Durkheim’s (1912) notion of collective effervescence, showing how shared emotional experiences in collective gatherings foster communal unity and social belonging (Rimé and Páez, 2023).
Olivia explained how Zoom erased the small but meaningful interactions that created joy in class:
“It’s so hard to connect with someone virtually. On Zoom, if you say something, everyone hears you, so you can’t just whisper something like, ‘Oh, I love this!’ It’s a lot less natural to communicate, and you lose those little things that you do everyday that bring you joy…and connection.”
For Olivia, the inability to share small asides or spontaneous reactions meant losing moments that made learning socially rewarding.
Emilia compared asynchronous video lectures to the embodied experience of a classroom:
“It was one of those classes, where it wasn't like live lectures, so it was just YouTube videos posted at set times… I didn’t get a sense of actually going to a class, and I didn't know anybody from it…it felt really weird in a way that you know when you're in a class like you're supposed to feel the sense of like being in a group in a way, but [online] it was more like individualistic.”
Emilia’s words capture a theme echoed by others: without copresence, courses felt solitary and fragmented rather than collective and shared.
Students frequently emphasized that in-person classes offered visible cues of shared struggle or excitement, such as glances exchanged when material was confusing, laughter at an instructor’s joke, or the informal buzz of conversation before class began. Many participants described these cues as small but meaningful signals that helped them feel connected to others and motivated to persist through challenging material. Online, students noted that these forms of interaction were largely absent. Without opportunities to observe peers or share quick reactions, class sessions felt more individual and task-oriented. Across interviews, students described a shift toward learning that felt more solitary, with fewer opportunities to experience the joy of learning and collective momentum they associated with being physically present in a classroom.
3.2 Disconnect between students and instructors
Students widely reported that the shift to online learning affected their sense of connection with instructors and reduced opportunities for the kinds of classroom interactions that typically support engagement, motivation, and belonging. Participants described how features of virtual instruction, including reliance on asynchronous lectures, limited chances to speak during synchronous sessions, and the absence of nonverbal cues, made interactions feel more formal or distant. Many students noted that these conditions made them less likely to ask questions, attend office hours, or seek feedback. Across interviews, students associated these changes with increased feelings of isolation and reduced academic confidence.
3.2.1 Visual engagement and copresence
Reduced visual and embodied cues in online classes influenced students’ ability to remain engaged with instructors. Without seeing their professors’ faces, gestures, or expressions, many students described the material as less compelling and themselves as less focused.
Abby pointed to the way some professors presented slides without appearing on screen:
“Getting motivation…I had two professors, the lectures they don't even show their face and then sometimes it's literally like a slide and it has like three words and they talk about that slide for like 10 minutes. It's like…a podcast.”
For Abby, what was missing was not just content but copresence. The absence of visual cues made lectures feel flat and disconnected, as though she were listening to a recording rather than participating in a class.
Rachel expressed a similar frustration, emphasizing how much eye contact mattered for her learning:
“I like having that interaction of at least seeing my professor speak. And seeing what they look like and it's just like, yes, I see your photo on Canvas but it's not the same thing…it's especially like really hard to be concentrated on something when you can't even see the person. I'm someone who has to be making eye contact with you for me to be able to understand what you're saying.”
Her description highlights how engagement depended not only on hearing words but on seeing the person delivering them.
Marco reflected more generally on the value of in-person interaction with professors:
“I really, really, valued being in that classroom and being able to talk to these professors. I like talking, having these interactions…when you’re in person you’re more tuned in to lecture.”
Marco’s account underscores how physical proximity supported attention. For him, the shift online meant not just a loss of information but a loss of connection to the instructor as a person.
Across interviews, students commonly noted how online teaching narrowed instructors’ ability to convey energy or personality. Participants frequently reported that what once felt dynamic in person felt flattened or less engaging online.
3.2.2 Communication barriers and asking for help
A large portion of the sample explained that online learning limited their comfort with help-seeking and reduced the informal communication that typically supports belonging and motivation. Students often shared that virtual classrooms made it more difficult to ask questions, disclose confusion, or request accommodations, in part because opportunities for spontaneous interaction were constrained. In the absence of casual moments to approach instructors before or after class, many described learning as shifting from a shared, relational process to an individual responsibility they were forced to navigate on their own.
Carly explained that many of her peers gave up on reaching out when they did not understand something:
“People are like, ‘I don't understand what the professor is saying, I'm just going to study it on my own.’ And so that's a huge barrier because people don't reach out to faculty or TA’s. Or professors just go super fast or don't stop to ask questions or don't make it comfortable to ask questions in class.”
Her observation highlights how quickly confusion turned into isolation when communication channels felt closed.
Cynthia described missing the informal check-ins that used to happen at the end of class:
“I miss having the comfort of at the end of class just being able to walk up to your professor and like saying I don't understand this, or I need help with this, or I need this type of accommodation. You can't always do the same thing on Zoom.”
The lack of such moments meant that asking for support now required more formal effort, such as logging into office hours or sending an email. Many found these steps uncomfortable.
Brianna explained how this formality kept her from fully connecting with instructors:
“It was really hard to get that one-on-one connection and ask questions. Even if they had office hours…I don’t really go…I just felt so disconnected because I didn't know much about the Professor, and the Professor didn't know much about me. The Professor didn't really know what my needs are you know or what specifically I was struggling with, and it was hard to pinpoint what I was struggling when I didn't understand the material, so I didn't know exactly where I was struggling.”
Brianna’s reflection shows how a lack of relationship made academic struggles harder to articulate. Without feeling known by her professor, even attending office hours did not bridge the gap.
These reflections were recurring across interviews: without casual moments to clarify confusion or seek reassurance, many students described managing academic difficulties alone.
3.2.3 Feeling unsupported or unseen by instructors
Several students reflected on how online classes left them feeling less supported or recognized by professors, which shaped their sense of belonging and engagement with coursework. Participants often remarked that instructors appeared less aware of their circumstances or challenges during remote learning.
Alejandra described the misalignment between faculty expectations and students’ realities:
“They expect more with online, they think we have more time…the deadlines and the homework and everything were very just unrealistic for the time. Everything online, it's just really, really rough. And the workload isn't easier. I feel like [professors] don't know necessarily how much we really take on. I think some of them might think that [online is] really easy - like I said, it's not really. I think, maybe they just need to have a conversation with their students, like, ‘how are you doing if you're really stressed out, come to me and talk to me, we can figure something out’ rather than putting like a lot of pressure on students to get things done.”
Her account points to the absence of empathy that she felt was once conveyed through in-person relationships.
Miguel found online office hours especially impersonal:
“It's a little awkward just because, like you, pop in… it always just feels kind of weird because it's like okay, okay, instead of like the natural interaction that you might have like in person. It’s just really hard to get that one-on-one connection… I just felt so disconnected because I didn’t know much about the Professor and the Professor didn’t know much about me.”
For Miguel, what was missing was the ease of natural interaction. Without a prior sense of rapport, office hours felt transactional rather than supportive.
Dominic expressed a more resigned view:
“That one on one connection in person, it’s definitely harder to do that over Zoom and with professors, it’s definitely just harder and I don't think much can be done, it just is what it is.”
His words capture the sense of inevitability some students felt; that online learning simply could not support the kinds of connections that motivated and sustained them in traditional classrooms.
Across interviews, students described feeling overlooked or disconnected from their instructors, noting that even when support structures like office hours existed, they rarely compensated for the ease of recognition and informal interaction that made students feel known in in-person settings.
4 Discussion and conclusion
4.1 The shift online
This study explored the relationship between social capital, academic engagement, and human capital accumulation in online classrooms. Scholars have long shown that social and human capital are deeply connected (Bourdieu, 1986; Coleman, 1988), yet existing literature has rarely considered how this relationship functions in online contexts. The analysis here demonstrates that the shift online changed not only how students behaved with peers and instructors but also how they engaged with academic material. Because these interviews were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings reflect students’ experiences within a broader context of social disruption, uncertainty, and isolation. As such, the study does not attempt to make a causal argument about the effects of online learning itself.
Examining the shift to online is important, as online learning has become the fastest-growing segment of U. S. higher education, with two-thirds of institutions expanding online programs as of 2023 (Garrett et al., 2023). While this shift promises increased accessibility, it requires significant investments in technology infrastructure, course design, and faculty training to achieve outcomes comparable to in-person education (Garcia-Morales et al., 2021; Bond et al., 2021; Iglesias-Pradas et al., 2021). Effective online education also demands new pedagogical approaches, as faculty must adapt to teaching in virtual environments (Laubepin and Luzius, 2024; Li et al., 2022). Without these investments, rapid expansion risks reflecting “academic capitalism,” where universities produce more graduates with fewer full-time faculty, prioritizing cost-efficiency over educational quality (Slaughter and Leslie, 1997; McNay, 2022).
Students in this study highlighted the relational costs of this shift. They described how the affordances of in-person classrooms, such as turning to a neighbor to ask a quick question, chatting with an acquaintance after class, or approaching an instructor informally, were largely absent online. Although platforms like Zoom technically provided avenues for interaction, chat functions and breakout rooms rarely fostered new connections. Similarly, casual interactions with instructors after class were lost, as were facial expressions and body-language cues that make faculty feel approachable. Students perceived professors as distant, and many hesitated to attend office hours, which they found uncomfortable or ineffective. These dynamics echo Hooks (1994) insistence that authentic education depends on relational dialogue and show how difficult it was for students to feel “seen” in online classrooms (Hickey and Riddle, 2022). Importantly, these relational experiences cannot be attributed solely to online learning. The pandemic created widespread social isolation and emotional strain, and many of the challenges students described likely reflect the combined effects of emergency remote instruction and the broader disruptions of COVID-19.
Prior research on online education reflects related tensions in online classrooms. While advocates emphasize flexibility, reduced cost, and expanded access for marginalized populations (Tate and Warschauer, 2022; McIntyre, 2022; Zimmerman et al., 2020), critics note persistent deficits in engagement, collaboration, and instructor interaction (Hollister et al., 2022; Akpen et al., 2024). Students frequently report isolation and diminished motivation, especially in asynchronous settings (Aldosari et al., 2022). Scholars argue that even well-supported online courses rarely replicate the affective and embodied dimensions of in-person instruction (Freire, 2005; Willatt and Flores, 2021). Others counter that when courses are designed with clear structure and relational pedagogy, outcomes can approach those of traditional classrooms (Cheung et al., 2023; Martin and Bolliger, 2023). This study contributes to these debates by illustrating how relational processes were affected during a period when universities moved online rapidly and without robust pedagogical or infrastructural support, rather than claiming to isolate the independent effects of online learning.
4.2 Capital and cultural norms in the classroom
While structural changes in online education shaped how students interacted with peers and faculty, they also intersected with cultural norms and orientations in ways that posed distinct challenges for Latinx and first-generation students. Social capital, defined as networks, ties, and institutional know-how (Gentry et al., 2025), is a critical resource in higher education, enabling students to transform belonging into concrete academic and professional opportunities (Jack, 2019a; Dost and Mazzoli Smith, 2023). This capital is built through both formal interactions (e.g., asking questions in lecture) and informal exchanges (e.g., chatting before class, forming study groups) that support confidence, persistence, and access to resources.
Weak ties, in particular, are essential. These casual, low-stakes connections facilitate the spread of new information and opportunities that strong-tie networks often cannot (Granovetter, 1973; Kim and Fernandez, 2023). In higher education, weak ties help students clarify assignments, learn about campus resources, and absorb academic norms through peer observation. For first-generation and underrepresented students, they are often vital conduits for navigating the hidden curriculum of higher education (Nunn, 2021; Gable, 2021; VanDijk and Daniel, 2025). In this study, the absence of weak-tie peer networks was especially consequential: students described online opportunities for informal connection as awkward or forced, and most chose not to pursue them. The result was isolation and fewer avenues to exchange ideas, normalize confusion, and sustain engagement, eroding both social and human capital development.
These dynamics intersect with cultural capital and classroom norms. U. S. universities often privilege White, middle-class norms of independence, emphasizing self-reliance and individual achievement (Jack, 2019a; Phillips et al., 2020; Covarrubias and Valle, 2023). Many Latinx and first-generation students bring interdependent orientations (Yosso, 2005; Vazquez et al., 2025), balancing academic responsibilities with familial and community commitments, captured in the concept of familismo (Azpeitia and Bacio, 2022). As Amato et al. (2024) note, encouragement and validation from peers, faculty, and family are central to the success of many first-generation students. When online courses remove spontaneous opportunities for peer support and faculty rapport, these cultural mismatches are exacerbated, making belonging more difficult to achieve (Covarrubias and Valle, 2023).
The consequences for belonging were clear. In this study, students often felt peripheral to their classes, not because they struggled with coursework, but because they lacked the relational anchors that signal inclusion. Belonging in higher education depends on everyday forms of recognition, validation, and access to informal networks (Strayhorn, 2012; Taff and Clifton, 2022). Reductions in everyday informal interactions with peers and faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with significant declines in students’ sense of belonging, highlighting the importance of routine social engagement in higher education (Barringer et al., 2022). Online settings made it harder to establish these connections: students hesitated to approach instructors, struggled to form new peer ties, and described a persistent sense of distance from their academic learning communities. For Latinx and first-generation students, whose persistence frequently draws on collective affirmation and relational support (Nunn, 2021; Gutierrez et al., 2025), the absence of these signals rendered belonging precarious and difficult to sustain. Here, belonging emerges not as a matter of individual adaptation, but as an outcome contingent on the availability of weak ties and culturally attuned forms of support.
The erosion of weak ties and cultural misalignment are not trivial: they directly affect human capital accumulation; the development of knowledge and skills necessary for academic and professional advancement (Coleman, 1988; Phillips et al., 2020; Guyotte et al., 2021). These dynamics suggest that online education may align more easily with dominant cultural norms of independence, creating additional barriers for students who rely on relational strategies for learning and persistence.
4.3 Copresence and collective effervescence
Beyond weak ties and cultural norms, this study identifies copresence and collective effervescence as central mechanisms linking online modalities to students’ development of social and human capital. Durkheim (1912) conceptualized collective effervescence as the emotional energy generated when people gather around a shared purpose; in classroom settings, this manifests as the pre-class buzz, the shared recognition when difficult material “clicks,” or the sense of collective momentum during discussion. Recent empirical research affirms these dynamics, showing that shared emotional experiences and synchronized attention foster solidarity and a shared sense of reality (Rimé and Páez, 2023; Wlodarczyk et al., 2020). These findings underscore that the relational “charge” students draw from in-person classrooms emerges from subtle, embodied cues that are difficult to reproduce online.
Interaction ritual theory further explains why these cues matter. Collins (2004) argues that interaction rituals infused with shared emotion produce “emotional energy” that motivates participation, while Liebst (2019) identifies conditions such as synchronized attention and mutual emotional captivation. More recent work underscores how crucial embodied copresence is for generating these effects: the removal of bodily copresence weakens the interaction ritual chains that ordinarily produce solidarity, shared reality, and emotional energy (Collins, 2020). Additional research finds that shared attention and shared emotion generate a shared perspective and felt togetherness; the very conditions that Durkheim described (Kronsted, 2025). This literature suggests that copresence is not an optional enhancement to learning environments, but a mechanism through which belonging and engagement are generated.
Collaborative learning research offers further support for this interpretation. Foundational studies show that learning communities and small-group interaction strengthen engagement and academic persistence (Zhao and Kuh, 2004), and recent work demonstrates that students’ affective and cognitive experiences in discussion-based courses depend on the opportunities for shared attention, presence, and interaction that occur in face-to-face settings (Zengilowski et al., 2023). These contemporary findings align closely with students’ accounts in this study: without visible peers, spontaneous conversation, or embodied cues of collective struggle and understanding, learning felt more solitary and less motivating.
The pandemic context magnified these relational disruptions. Studies document significant declines in belonging when students lose access to everyday social contact and informal academic interactions (Barringer et al., 2022). Other work highlights how physical campus environments ordinarily support sociocultural engagement and affirm students’ sense of place within academic communities, supports that were sharply reduced during remote instruction (Kassab et al., 2024). Students in this study echoed these patterns, describing how the absence of copresence in online classrooms disrupted interactional processes.
Without embodied cues such as tone, gesture, eye contact, or shared moments of recognition, student–instructor and peer interactions felt formal, distant, or transactional (Collins et al., 2022). Participants noted missing subtle signals like shared laughter, nods of understanding, or whispered clarifications that normalize the struggle learning often is and sustain motivation. In their absence, many reported heightened impostor syndrome and a sense that learning had shifted from a collaborative endeavor to an individual burden. Copresence, in this sense, is not ornamental; it facilitates the very social-capital relationships that underpin academic engagement and human capital formation.
4.4 Limitations and future directions
These findings extend existing theories of social capital and copresence by showing how online environments weaken both relational and affective mechanisms of belonging. At the same time, the study’s scope requires some caution in interpretation, highlighting several limitations and directions for future work.
Most importantly, because data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study cannot differentiate whether students’ experiences were shaped by online learning itself, the broader social and emotional disruptions of the pandemic, or the interaction of both. As such, the analysis does not make causal claims and should be understood as reflecting students’ experiences with emergency remote instruction during an extraordinary historical moment.
Limitations also include the exclusive focus on Latinx students at a single four-year university, the cross-sectional design, and qualitative measures of capital. Longitudinal, mixed-methods research that quantifies weak-tie formation and tracks knowledge progression would strengthen causal inference. Future research should also examine whether these dynamics operate similarly for other racial and ethnic groups, in long-established online programs (such as University of Phoenix and other institutions), and across different modalities (asynchronous, synchronous, hybrid). Comparative designs could clarify the relative contributions of weak- versus strong-tie relationships to human capital development in online modalities and test which pedagogical or institutional interventions most effectively rebuild weak-tie opportunities online.
5 Conclusion
Given these limitations, the findings should not be interpreted as evidence of the inherent effects of online learning but rather as insight into how relational aspects of higher education were affected when courses moved online rapidly and without adequate institutional support. As U. S. higher education continues to expand online offerings, institutions must reckon with the reality that access alone does not guarantee equity. As Jack (2019b) reminds us, “access ain’t inclusion.” Intentional design, relational pedagogy, and institutionally supported opportunities for connection are essential if online learning is to foster, not constrain, students’ sense of belonging and engagement. Without intentional design to foster peer networks, cultivate genuine connections with faculty, and recreate the informal interaction opportunities that in-person classrooms naturally provide, online learning will continue to erode the very social processes that make learning engaging, effective, and exciting. As Luna put it simply: “I don’t learn like this”.
Data availability statement
The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.
Ethics statement
The studies involving humans were approved by the Office of IRB Administration (OIA) at University of California San Diego. The studies were conducted in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The Ethics Committee/Institutional Review Board waived the requirement of written informed consent for participation from the participants, instead granting a waiver of documentation of consent due to the remote nature of interviews (obtaining signatures was impractical and would create additional identifying records) and to protect participant privacy. Verbal informed consent was obtained prior to each interview. Written informed consent was not obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article because the study involved remote, minimal-risk interviews and the IRB waived documentation of consent; participants gave verbal consent to publish de-identified quotes.
Author contributions
KS: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Funding acquisition.
Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This work was supported by the UC San Diego Department of Sociology Summer Research Grant.
Acknowledgments
I thank the students who participated in this study and my mentor, Dr. Richard Pitt, who provided invaluable feedback on earlier drafts. I also appreciate support from Dr. Abigail Andrews and the research assistants from UC San Diego’s Mexican Migration Field Research Program who contributed to research design and data collection. Finally, I would like to thank Mariana Lopez, without whom this work would not have been possible.
Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Generative AI statement
The author(s) declared that Generative AI was used in the creation of this manuscript. I used ChatGPT (OpenAI; model: GPT-5 Thinking, accessed October 2025 via chat.openai.com) solely to condense and copy-edit portions of the manuscript text. No analyses, coding, or interpretation were performed by AI. I reviewed, verified, and revised all AI-assisted text and take full responsibility for the content.
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Supplementary material
The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2025.1717404/full#supplementary-material
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Keywords: academic engagement, belonging, cultural capital, Hispanic-serving institutions, human capital, online learning, social capital
Citation: Saper K (2026) “I don’t learn like this”: social capital and human capital during emergency remote learning at an emerging Hispanic-serving institution. Front. Educ. 10:1717404. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1717404
Edited by:
Ramon Ventura Roque Hernández, Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas, MexicoReviewed by:
Carol Nash, University of Toronto, CanadaJennifer Drew, University of Florida, United States
Copyright © 2026 Saper. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Kea Saper, a3NhcGVyQHVjc2QuZWR1
†ORCID: Kea Saper, orcid.org/0009-0005-8485-4066