Abstract
This chapter provides an introduction to the topic of engaging youth in schools, detailing how and why policy makers and educational reformers widely consider engagement to be at the heart of meaningful school reform and innovative programming for youth. An alarming high school dropout rate, as well as national and international surveys, testifies to pervasive disengagement in schools; meanwhile, trends of increasing depression and obesity draw attention to concerns over the well-being of youth. A historical analysis presented in this chapter suggests that schools were not modeled after how individuals learn or develop but were rather modeled after hierarchical centralization at the confluence of the industrial revolution and urbanization in the US Engagement, operationally defined throughout much of this book as heightened, simultaneous concentration, interest, and enjoyment, serves as a lens through which both positive school outcomes and psychosocial well-being are examined. This book focuses on optimal learning environments, or environments empirically demonstrated to engage youth. In Chaps. 2-5 of this book, classroom and individual factors that influence students’ engagement in American public schools are identified. In Chaps 6-9, we consider the “how” (how students become engaged and how teachers engage students), “who” (to whom students are engaged and the importance of relationships), and “what” (to what students are engaged or the contents of students’ engagement) of engagement. In Chaps. 10-14, several optimal contexts for positive engagement, as supported empirically, are described in depth, providing models of innovative school, after-school, and community programming for youth.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This dropout rate includes students from states in which graduation is dependent on both the successful completion of the 4-year high school curriculum and the state-administered high school leaving or exit examination. Currently, 17, or just over one third of states, mandate such an exit exam. It is important to note that there is controversy around how the high school dropout rate is calculated. The commonly reported metric, based on a data set (Common Core of Data or CCD) managed by the US Department of Education, is the averaged freshman graduation rate, which is said to reflect the percent of ninth graders who graduate on time, 4 years later. However, the CCD reports enrolled, but not entering, ninth graders. This means that the dropout rate can include, at any time, the number of students who were not promoted out of or are voluntarily repeating the ninth grade (Roy and Mishel 2008).
- 2.
Despite being one of the wealthiest countries that human history has ever produced, 18 % of children born in the United States—and nearly one in every three children in many urban centers—live in poverty (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2007).
- 3.
This was down from 50 % in 2007.
- 4.
The 28 OECD countries that participated were those belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and there were 15 non-OECD countries that also participated in the study.
References
Agnew, R. (2008). Juvenille delinquency: Causes and control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alliance for Excellent Education. (2009). Fact sheet: High school dropouts in America. http://www.all4ed.org/files/GraduationRates_FactSheet.pdf. Accessed 28 Sept 2009.
American Psychological Association. (1997). Learner-centered psychological principles: A framework for school redesign and reform. http://www.cdl.org/resource-library/articles/learner_centered.php. Accessed 13 Oct 2010.
Appleton, J. J., Christenson, S. L., & Furlong, M. J. (2008). Student engagement with school: Critical conceptual and methodological issues of the construct. Psychology in the Schools, 45(5), 369–386.
Bloom, B., & Dey, A. N. (2006). Summary health statistics for U.S. children: National Health Interview Survey, 20004. Vital Health Statistics, 227, 1–85.
Boyer, E. L. (1983). High school: A report on secondary education in America. New York: Harper and Row.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Clay, R. A. (2005). Making working families work. Monitor on Psychology, 36(11), http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec05/work.html. Accessed 30 Sept 2009.
Connell, J. P., & Wellborn, J. G. (1991). Competence, autonomy, and relatedness: A motivational analysis of self-system processes. In M. R. Gunnar & L. A. Sroufe (Eds.), Self processes and development (The Minnesota symposium on child psychology, Vol. 23, pp. 43–77). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Crosnoe, R. (2001). Academic orientation and parental involvement in education during high school. Sociology of Education, 74(3), 210–230.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Perennial.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York: HarperCollins.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Larson, R. (1984). Being adolescent: Conflict and growth in the teenage years. New York: Basic Books.
Darling-Hammond, L. (1997). The right to learn: A blueprint for creating schools that work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Deci, E. L. (1996). Why we do what we do. New York: Penguin.
Dewey, J. (1897/1973). My pedagogic creed. In J. J. McDermott (Ed.), The philosophy of John Dewey (pp. 442–454). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Diener, E., Sandvik, E., & Pavot, W. (1991). Happiness is the frequency, not the intensity, of positive versus negative affect. In F. Strack (Ed.), Subjective well-being: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 119–139). Elmsford: Pergamon Press.
Dooley, S. (2009). 2009 college graduates find jobs harder to land. http://www.qctimes.com/news/local/article_ef66ecee-6394-11de-bf00-001cc4c03286.html. Accessed 28 Sept 2009.
Eccles, J. S., & Gootman, J. A. (2002). Community programs to promote youth development. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Eccles, J. S., Midgley, C., Wigfield, A., Buchanan, C. M., Reuman, D., Flanagan, C., et al. (1993). Development during adolescence: The impact of stage-environment fit on young adolescents’ experiences in schools and in families. American Psychologist, 48(2), 90–101.
Eccles, J. S., Lord, S. E., Roeser, R. W., Barber, B. L., & Jozefowicz, D. M. H. (1997). The association of school transitions in early adolescence with developmental trajectories during high school. In J. Schulenberg, J. L. Maggs, & K. Hurrelmann (Eds.), Health risks and developmental transitions during adolescence (pp. 283–321). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Eccles, J. S., Wigfield, A., & Schiefele, U. (1998). Motivation to succeed. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 1017–1095). New York: Wiley.
Eid, M., & Larsen, R. J. (2008). The science of subjective well-being. New York: The Guilford Press.
Einstein, A. (1954). Ideas and opinions (Modern Library ed.), New York: Modern Library.
Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74, 59–109.
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226.
Fredrickson, B. L. (2006). The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. In M. Csikszentmihalyi & I. S. Csikszentmihalyi (Eds.), A life worth living: Contributions to positive psychology (pp. 85–103). New York: Oxford University Press.
Fredrickson, B. L., & Joiner, T. (2002). Positive emotions trigger upward spirals toward emotional well-being. Psychological Science, 13(2), 172–175.
Furlong, M. J., & Christenson, S. L. (2008). Engaging students at school and with learning: A relevant construct for all students. Psychology in the Schools, 45, 365–368.
Gates, H. L. (2007). The last word. San Francisco: Wiley.
Gilman, R., Huebner, E. S., & Furlong, M. J. (Eds.). (2009). Handbook of positive psychology in schools. New York: Routledge.
Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. New York: Doubleday.
Goodlad, J. I. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the future. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hibell, B., Guttormsson, U., Ahlstrom, S., Balkakiereva, O., Bjarnason, T., Kokkevi, A., & Kraus, L. (2004). The ESPAD Report 2003: Alcohol and other drug use among students in 35 European countries: The Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN) and Council of Europe Pompidou Group.
Huebner, E. S., & Diener, C. (2008). Research on life satisfaction of children and youth. In M. Eid & R. J. Larsen (Eds.), The science of subjective well-being (pp. 376–392). New York: The Guilford Press.
Jackson, P. W. (1968). Life in classrooms. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Jessor, R., & Jessor, S. (1977). Problem behavior and psychosocial development: A longitudinal study of youth. New York: Academic.
Johnson, L. S. (2008). Relationship of instructional methods to student engagement in two public school settings. American Secondary Education, 36, 69–87.
Jones, J. N. (2008). The influence of school identification on participation and engagement in an alternative high school: An interpretive ethnography. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New York.
Kelly, S. (2008). Race, social class, and student engagement in middle school English classrooms. Social Science Research, 37(2), 434–448.
Kelly, S., & Price, H. (2014). Changing patterns of engagement in the transition to high school. In D. J. Shernoff, & J. Bempechat (Eds.), Engaging youth in schools: Evidence-based models to guide future innovations. New York: NSSE Yearbooks by Teachers College Record.
Klem, A. M., & Connell, J. P. (2004). Relationships matter: Linking teacher support to student engagement and achievement. Journal of School Health, 74(7), 262–273.
Kozol, J. (1991). Savage inequalities (1st ed.). New York: Crown.
Larson, R. W. (2000). Toward a psychology of positive youth development. American Psychologist, 55(1), 170–183.
Lerner, R. M. (2004). Liberty: Thriving and civic engagement among America’s youth. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., Almerigi, J. B., Theokas, C., Phelps, E., Gestsdottir, S., et al. (2005). Positive youth development, participation in community youth development programs, and community contributions of fifth-grade adolescents: Findings from the first wave of the 4-H study of positive youth development. Journal of Early Adolescence, 25(1), 17–71.
Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., Phelps, E., et al. (2008). The positive development of youth: Report of the findings from the first four years of the 4-H study of positive youth development. http://ase.tufts.edu/iaryd/documents/4HStudyAnnualReport2008.pdf. Accessed 2 Oct 2009.
Lewinsohn, P. M., Rohde, P., Seeley, J. R., & Fischer, S. A. (1993). Age-cohort changes in the lifetime occurrence of depression and other mental disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102(1), 110–120.
Li, Y., Bebiroglu, N., Phelps, E., Lerner, R. M., & Lerner, J. V. (2014). Out-of-school time activity participation, school engagement, and positive youth development: Findings from the 4-H study of positive youth development. Journal of Youth Development.
Luthar, S. S. (2003). The culture of affluence: Psychological costs of material wealth. Child Development, 74(6), 1581–1593.
Luthar, S. S., & D’Avanzo, K. (1999). Contextual factors in substance use: A study of suburban and inner-city adolescents. Development & Psychopathology, 11(4), 845–867.
Mahoney, J. L., Larson, R. W., & Eccles, J. S. (Eds.). (2005). Organized activities as contexts of development: Extracurricular activities, after-school and community programs. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Marks, H. M. (2000). Student engagement in instructional activity: Patterns in the elementary, middle and high school years. American Educational Research Journal, 37(1), 153–184.
Nakamura, J. (2001). The nature of vital engagement in adulthood. In M. Michaelson & J. Nakamura (Eds.), Supportive frameworks for youth engagement (pp. 5–18). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Nakamura, J., & Shernoff, D. J. (2009). Good mentoring: Fostering excellent practice in higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
National Center for Education Statistics. (1993). Drop-out rates in the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2000). Dropout rates in the United States: 1999. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2002). The condition of education (No. NCES 2002-025). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
National Center for Health Statistics. (2005). Prevalence of overweight among children and adolescents: United States, 1999–2002. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd/hestats/overwght99.htm. Accessed 21 June 2006.
National Research Council Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. (2004). Engaging schools: Fostering high school students’ motivation to learn. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Newmann, F. M., Wehlage, G. G., & Lamborn, S. D. (1992). The significance and sources of student engagement. In F. M. Newmann (Ed.), Student engagement and achievement in American secondary schools (pp. 11–39). New York: Teachers College Press.
Noddings, N. (2003). Happiness and education. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
O’Farrell, S. L., & Morison, G. M. (2003). A factor analysis exploring school bonding and related constructs among upper elementary students. The California School Psychologist, 8, 53–72.
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Pope, D. C. (2001). Doing school: How we are creating a generation of stressed-out, materialistic, and miseducated students. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Post, T. W. (2012). Transcript: Obama speaks to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Obama_Hispanic_Chamber_Commerce.html. Accessed 11 July 2012.
Reschly, A. L., Huebner, E. S., Appleton, J. J., & Antaramian, S. (2008). Engagement as flourishing: The contribution of positive emotions and coping to adolescents’ engagement at school and with learning. Psychology in the Schools, 45(5), 419–431.
Roeser, R. W., Eccles, J. S., & Sameroff, A. J. (2000). School as a context of early adolescents’ academic and social-emotional development: A summary of research findings. Elementary School Journal, 100, 443–471.
Roy, J., & Mishel, L. (2008). Using administrative data to estimate graduation rates: Challenges, proposed solutions and their pitfalls. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 16, 2–27.
Sameroff, A. J. (1983). Developmental systems: Contexts and evolution. In P. H. Mussen (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (4th ed.). New York: Wiley.
Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Leffert, N., & Blyth, D. A. (2000). Contribution of developmental assets to the prediction of thriving among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 4(1), 27–46.
Sedlak, M. W., Wheeler, C. W., Pullin, D. C., & Cusick, P. A. (1986). Selling students short: Classroom bargains and academic reform in the American high school. New York: Teachers College Press.
Seligman, M. E. P. (1990). Learned optimism: How to change your mind and your life. New York: Pocket Books.
Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic happiness: Using the new positive psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment. New York: Free Press.
Seligman, M. E. P., Ernst, R. M., Gillham, J., Reivich, K., & Linkins, M. (n.d.). Positive education. Unpublished manuscript, Philadelphia.
Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5–14.
Shernoff, D. J., & Schmidt, J. A. (2008). Further evidence of an engagement-achievement paradox among U.S. High school students. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 36, 891–903.
Shernoff, D. J., Knauth, S., & Makris, E. (2000). The quality of classroom experiences. In M. Csikszentmihalyi & B. Schneider (Eds.), Becoming adult: How teenagers prepare for the world of work (pp. 141–164). New York: Basic Books.
Shernoff, D. J., Csikszentmihalyi, M., Schneider, B., & Shernoff, E. S. (2003). Student engagement in high school classrooms from the perspective of flow theory. School Psychology Quarterly, 18(2), 158–176.
Shinn, M., & Yoshikawa, H. (Eds.). (2008). Toward positive youth development: Transforming schools and community programs. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Sirin, S. R., & Rogers-Sirin, L. (2004). Exploring school engagement of middle-class African American adolescents. Youth & Society, 35(3), 323–340.
Sizer, T. R. (1984). Horace’s compromise: The dilemma of the American high school. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Smyth, J., & Fasoli, L. (2007). Climbing over the rocks in the road to student engagement and learning in a challenging high school in Australia. Educational Research, 49(3), 273–295.
Snyder, C. R., & Lopez, S. J. (Eds.). (2002). Handbook of positive psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Steinberg, L., Brown, B. B., & Dornbusch, S. M. (1996). Beyond the classroom: Why school reform has failed and what parents need to do. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Sternberg, R. J. (2005). Intelligence, competence, and expertise. In A. J. Elliot & C. S. Dweck (Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation. New York: Guilford Press.
Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (1999). The teaching gap: Best ideas from the world’s teachers for improving education in the classroom. New York: Free Press.
Stipek, D. J. (2002). Motivation to learn (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Suldo, S. M., Huebner, E. S., Friedrich, A. A., & Gilman, R. (2009). Life satisfaction. In R. Gilman, E. S. Huebner, & M. J. Furlong (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology in schools (pp. 27–35). New York: Routledge.
The Afterschool Alliance. (n.d.). Working families and afterschool: A special report from America after 3 PM: A household survey on afterschool in America. http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/press_archives/Working_Families_Rpt.pdf. Accessed 28 Sept 2009.
Tyack, D. B. (1974). The one best system. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tyack, D. B., & Tobin, W. (1994). The “grammar” of schooling: Why has it been so hard to change? American Educational Research Journal, 31(3), 453–479.
U.S. Bureau of the Census. (2007). Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States (pp. 60–65).
Voelkl, K. E. (1997). Identification with school. American Journal of Education, 105(3), 294–318.
Weiss, H. B., Little, P. M. D., & Bouffard, S. M. (2005). More than just being there: Balancing the participation equation. New Directions for Youth Development, 105, 15–31. doi:10.1002/yd.105.
Wickramaratne, P. J., Weissman, M. M., Leif, P. J., & Holford, T. R. (1989). Age, period and cohort effects on the risk of major depression: Results from five United States communities. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 42, 333–343.
Willms, J. D. (2003). Student engagement at school: A sense of belonging and participation: Results from PISA 2000. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Yair, G. (2000). Educational battlefields in America: The tug-of-war over students’ engagement with instruction. Sociology of Education, 73, 247–269.
Yazzie-Mintz, E. (2007). Voices of students on engagement: A report on the 2006 high school survey of student engagement. Bloomington: Center for Evaluation & Education Policy.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Shernoff, D.J. (2013). Introduction: Towards Optimal Learning Environments in Schools. In: Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement. Advancing Responsible Adolescent Development. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7089-2_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7089-2_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-7088-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7089-2
eBook Packages: Behavioral ScienceBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)