With growing evidence linking a sense of belonging to student engagement, academic outcomes, and overall well-being, fostering belonging has become a strategic priority in higher education. The impact of students' experiences of belonging extends beyond retention and progression rates, contributing to their sense of affiliation with their discipline's identity. This is attributed to the well-documented connection between the need to belong and motivation to engage with self-referential groups. Research suggests that when students experience a stronger sense of belonging in their learning environment, it can enhance their self-perception and, consequently, increase their affiliation with their discipline.

This paper presents pedagogically-informed engineering education practices that employ a decolonial approach to fostering a sense of belonging for engineering students through two key strategies:
1. Diversification that centers student voices and offers relevant, authentic learning experiences.
2. A decolonial mindset that creates equitable opportunities to promote, empower, and enable students to develop a sense of belonging to their discipline, thereby supporting the formation of their disciplinary identity.

The effectiveness of applying decolonial approaches is assessed through student-centered observational evaluations. The findings demonstrate how these approaches not only enhance students' sense of inclusion and belonging in their learning environment, but also support the development of global citizenship by providing diverse perspectives on technical challenges that are of real-world relevance.

Keywords: Diversity, equity and inclusion, sense of belong, decolonial, student success.