ABSTRACT
Educators, psychologists, and sociologists are increasingly focused on enhancing children’s engagement in school as a way to ameliorate problems of low achievement, student disruptions, and high dropout rates (National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2004). One body of literature examines the relation between disengagement from school and dropping out (Finn & Rock, 1997; Wehlage, Rutter, Smith, Lesko, & Fernandez, 1989). Another examines the role of classroom instruction and instructional tasks in promoting intellectual engagement (Newmann, 1992; Newmann, Wehlage, & Lamborn, 1992). A third body of work has examined how wider school contexts interact with individual needs to promote or undermine
Phyllis Blumenfeld University of Michigan
Jeanne Friedel University of Michigan
Allison Paris Claremont McKenna College
engagement (Connell, 1990; Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Skinner & Belmont, 1993). Each body of literature presumes that engaged students are more likely to prosper as they move through school and that schools are organizations that reward engagement by providing incentives and niches that promote further engagement.
