ABSTRACT
Problems such as declining academic motivation and achievement, increasing student alienation, and elevated school drop-out rates have spurred researchers to investigate why some children become more engaged in school than others. What has been learned thus far suggests that school engagement is an important indicator of children’s motivation to learn and a pivotal predictor of their academic achievement (see Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004). Th us, it can be argued that understanding the determinants of school engagement is an important scientifi c objective and one that deserves greater attention than it has received in past years. Although the origins of school engagement are probably diverse (see Fredricks et al., 2004; Ladd & Dinella, 2009; Perry & Weinstein, 1998), recent theory and evidence points to the importance of interpersonal factors, such as the types of relationships that children and adolescents form with classmates and teachers (see Ryan, 2000). Relations with classroom peers, in particular, have been increasingly linked with diff ering indicators of school engagement, suggesting that peers may play a critical, if not unique role in the behavioral, emotional, and cognitive orientations that children develop toward school.
