Engagement for What? Beyond Popular Discourses of Student Engagement

In the last decade educational research about school improvement and effective schools increasingly identifies the significance of student engagement especially in relation to the academic success of students. There are several issues and concerns, relating both to the meaning and justification or aims of student engagement, that arise from this work that call for a philosophical inquiry. This paper offers an initial philosophical inquiry of student engagement. The paper is divided into two sections. The first section critically examines meanings and definitions of student engagement from current literature. The second section addresses several related issues, such as concerns of the purpose of student engagement, and the criteria, standards, and norms used to determine the quality and degree of engagement. It is argued that without considering such philosophical issues, empirical and psychological work on student engagement could simply, and at times unwittingly, reproduce existing dominant views that promote a deficient and exclusionary mentality. In contrast, we propose a conception of student engagement based on critical-democratic practice which entails the enactment of a curriculum of life. (Contains 5 footnotes.)