Student Engagement, School Climate, and Future Expectations in High School / Cynthia Hudley, Annette Daoud and Ted Polanco.

Engagement is a potentially useful construct for organizing strategies to support adjustment, achievement and retention in school, particularly among our most vulnerable student populations. Even if high quality schooling is available, high levels of achievement will implicitly demand engagement on the part of students. This initial analysis, drawn from the larger project, concentrates on a set of individual and interpersonal influences on engagement for a multiethnic sample of high school students. This definition of engagement comprises two components, behavior and affect. Using quantitative and qualitative indicators, the researchers assessed perceived teacher support, perceived ethnic relations, future expectations, and behavioral and affective engagement in a high school sample of Latino and Anglo students. It was hypothesized that student engagement, school climate, and student expectations would be related in specific ways, and those relationships would differ for Latino and Anglo youth. Findings indicate that perceptions of relationships with teachers are significant influences on student engagement, achievement, and expectations. (Contains 36 references and 3 tables.) (Author)

Microfiche. [Washington D.C.]: ERIC Clearinghouse microfiches : positive.