Digital campus governance and cultural identity of multi-ethnic students: a multiple mediation analysis of online social support and sense of community connection.

Introduction: Drawing upon Socio-Technical Systems Theory and the Sense of Community Theory, this study examines the associations between digital campus governance participation and the ethnic-cultural identity of multi-ethnic college students, testing the multiple indirect associations of online social support and campus sense of community connection, as well as the potential moderating role of ethnic background. Methods: Utilizing a cross-sectional questionnaire survey method, data were collected from 890 students across multi-ethnic universities in Southwest China. Results: Regression and bias-corrected Bootstrap analyses indicate that: (1) digital campus governance participation is significantly and positively associated with ethnic-cultural identity; (2) online social support and campus sense of community connection exhibit significant parallel indirect statistical covariations in this relationship, while jointly constructing a sequential chain association structure defined as "digital participation → online social support → campus sense of community connection → ethnic-cultural identity"; (3) the moderating role of ethnic background on the relationship between digital participation and online social support is not statistically significant. This suggests that the positive association of digital participation possesses cross-group similarity and stability between Han and ethnic minority students. Discussion: This study provides micro-psychological empirical evidence for the construction of inclusive digital campuses.