STUDENT’ S ENGAGEMENT IN SCHOOL: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Students’ Engagement in School has been the focus of debate concerning academic success and school dropout, and pointed out as a mean to address the problems affecting our schools and their students, not only for having value in itself, but also for being an important mediator between several academic variables. This paper reviews the research and literature on this concept and its relations with personal and contextual variables, as well as with academic performance, with the aim of summarizing the main relationships found. Literature presents a significant number of studies which sustain that personal variables, such as self-efficacy and self-concept, as well as contextual - peers, school, family- are related with school engagement. The adoption of mastery goals, for instance, has a positive impact on school, as they are related with the use of cognitive and self-regulatory strategies by students. Positive relationships with peers, teachers support and the quality of family relations are associated with higher levels of engagement and academic performance, while negative experiences, such as bullying, are related with educational difficulties. Following this, we reflect about the relevance of studying engagement in school, in the context of widespread financial crisis, and emphasize the need to rethink educational institutions considering the paradigmatic changes that currently occur.

Escola e comunidade: missão ou miragem no combate ao insucesso e abandono escolares, no período 1997/2007, no Concelho do Alandroal

Este estudo procurou conhecer a realidade do insucesso/abandono escolares no Concelho de Alandroal, no período de 1997-2007, identificando as causas das duas problemáticas e as medidas educativas de resolução, a partir de uma amostra de 41 sujeitos. Pretendemos identificar e caracterizar os episódios de insucesso e abandono escolares protagonizados por um grupo de alunos que iniciaram o seu percurso escolar em 1996/1997, no Concelho de Alandroal. No corpus teórico deste estudo, procedemos à revisão da literatura e à análise de normativos legais que abordam e regulamentam esta temática, de maneira a olhar para ela, de forma reflexiva. Ao nível do corpus empírico, utilizámos uma metodologia quantitativa/qualitativa, no sentido de obtermos o melhor conhecimento e interpretação desta realidade. Os resultados permitem concluir que existe uma relação entre as causas individuais, familiares, escolares e do meio envolvente que levaram ao insucesso e abandono escolares. Sublinhou-se a importância da implementação de medidas educativas adequadas e a sua relação com as instituições do concelho de Alandroal que levaram parte dos sujeitos a concluir o ensino obrigatório com sucesso; ABSTRACT: This study aimed to know the reality of failure / dropping out of school in the Municipality of Alandroal in the period 1997-2007, identifying the causes of both problems and educational measures of resolution, from a sample of 41 subjects. We intend to identify and characterize the episodes of school failure and dropping out staged by a group of students who started their schooling in 1996/1997, Municipality of Alandroal. In the theoretical corpus of this study, we carried out the literature review and analysis of legal norms that regulate and address this issue in order to look at her reflectively. In terms of empirical corpus, we used a method quantitative / qualitative, in order to obtain a better understanding and interpretation of reality. The results indicate that there is a relationship between the causes of individual, family, school and environment that led to failure and early school leaving. It underlined the importance of implementing appropriate educational measures and their relationship with the institutions of the county of Alandroal that led the subjects to complete the compulsory education successfully.