Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

Purpose: Lack of student engagement has been a major concern for educators and practitioners at school because it is a robust predictor of low achievement, behavioral problems, maladjustment, and school dropout. School, one context of student engagement, exerts great influence on student engagement. This study examined the influence of school socialization style on three types of student engagement at school (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive). School social workers have been striving to enhance student engagement and students' quality of lives at school. The findings from this study provide useful information for development and implementation of interventions at school by demonstrating the need for different approaches in different types of schools.

Methods: The sample comprised 3,079 nine to tenth graders from 121 schools. This study utilized U.S. data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2000 conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Based on the levels of demandingness (achievement press and disciplinary climate) and responsiveness (teacher support and teacher-student relationship), schools were categorized into four school socialization styles: authoritative (high demandingness and high responsiveness), authoritarian (high demandingness but low responsiveness), permissive (low demandingness but high responsiveness), and indifferent (low demandingness and low responsiveness). Two-level hierarchical linear models (HLM) were used to test two hypotheses: (1) authoritative style is positively associated with enhanced student engagement than other styles and (2) the association between school socialization style and student engagement varies by school SES (defined as average SES of students).

Results: An authoritative school socialization style was positively associated with emotional engagement but not with behavioral or cognitive engagement. Compared to students in authoritative schools, students in authoritarian schools (ES = - .21, p = .01) and indifferent schools (ES = - .20, p = .02) were less emotionally engaged with their schools. Interactions between school socialization styles and school SES were found for emotional engagement (ES = .22, p = .03) and cognitive engagement (ES = .31, p =.01). Students in authoritative low-SES schools showed higher levels of emotional engagement than students in authoritarian, permissive, or indifferent low SES schools; however, students in authoritative high-SES schools showed higher levels of emotional engagement than students in authoritarian or indifferent high-SES schools but lower levels than students in permissive high-SES schools. The levels of cognitive engagement did not differ by school socialization styles in high-SES schools but those did significantly differ by school socialization styles in low-SES schools. In low-SES schools, students in authoritative schools showed highest levels of cognitive engagement while students in permissive schools showed lowest levels of cognitive engagement.

Implications: The findings demonstrate to school social workers and other school-based practitioners that, by changing school environment, we may increase students' emotional engagement with school, and. in the long-run, may prevent school dropout—a result of a long-term process of disengagement from school. The finings of this study also suggest that maintaining high levels of both demandingness and responsiveness of school (authoritative style) is critical in enhancing student engagement, especially for schools with high proportion of low-SES students.