The Missing Link

The Missing Link

There is a missing link in explanations of engagement and disengagement, and of what’s responsible for them. This missing link is the social side of student engagement. This neglect has led to strategies that are insufficient for the scale of the problem. Research on student engagement has been dominated by the discipline of psychology— and especially by what is known as positive psychology. This has promoted individual and small-scale solutions to what are often social and systemic problems of disengagement.

We review key psychological perspectives in this book because they help us understand the interpersonal dynamics of motivation and engagement. They cover the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional factors that bring about greater or lesser engagement in our classrooms and our schools. The strength of positive psychology is that it suggests practical approaches and strategies that teachers and schools can use immediately. These include things like boosting intrinsic motivation, providing positive feedback, and creating experiences of flow in students’ learning. The limitation of positive psychology, though, is that it only examines the small-scale factors in individual classrooms and schools that can be manipulated to secure improvement. The problem with the prevailing influence of psychological perspectives is not that they are wrong. They are just not enough.

There is no shortage of well-known, psychologically informed strategies that, in principle, any teacher can use to enhance their students’ engagement—from adopting growth mindsets, to introducing interdisciplinary projects, to using formative assessments, for example. The evidence base has increased, the books are numerous, and the professional development has been plentiful. Yet, overall, engagement levels don’t seem to be getting better. So, what’s the problem? Are teachers simply reluctant to take risks and try new practices that the evidence suggests work well? Or is something else getting in the way?

The distinctive contribution of this book is that it comes to terms with what is obstructing optimum engagement, and with what needs to be done as a result. To do this, we develop a complementary

sociological perspective on understanding student engagement and disengagement. Teachers want to engage their students. That’s why most of them came into teaching. But many things impede their efforts. Teachers know them all too well: principals who micromanage teachers’ judgments, tests that take away time from learning, and overcrowded curricula that rush everyone through memorizing uninteresting content. Helicopter parents, oversized classes, bureaucratic demands, and insufficient supports are just some of the barriers that teachers encounter when they try to increase their students’ engagement with learning.

A sociological perspective helps us acknowl- Teachers want edge the existence of and reasons for these to engage their barriers. It enables us to see that there are students. That’s institutional and societal (not just interper- why most of them sonal) barriers, and to confront the fact that, came into teaching. alongside the solutions suggested by positive But many things psychology, increasing engagement for all impede their efforts.students will require institutional and educational policy solutions, too. A sociological perspective helps us realize that teachers and school leaders are responsible for increasing student engagement, but also that they are not solely responsible. If student engagement isn’t improving, it’s not only or always the teacher’s fault. It’s often also the fault of misguided testing policies, underfunded public education systems, overloaded reform agendas, distorted power relationships, and hasty introductions of digital technologies.

Sociology, like psychology, can suggest practical strategies for change. In fact, by integrating sociological perspectives into the literature on student engagement, we can do so much more than make teachers feel guilty about disappointing student engagement survey results, for example. We can also avoid implying or insisting that teachers alone are responsible for putting things right even when systems of standardized testing and top-down control are working against them.

The positive side of sociological perspectives is that they help us to see not just that bureaucratic testing undermines student engagement,