Abstract
Traditionally, engagement as a feature of student action has been the purview of psychologists who have sought to identify the individual variables that come together to constitute student engagement. Recognising the complexity of the concept of engagement has led to multidimensional models that include behavioural, emotional and cognitive engagement and the recognition that engagement is open to fashioning and is a resource that builds on itself. Although data for these studies typically are culled from surveys of individual students, such approaches have two limitations: there is no place for examining collective engagement; and the role of classroom interactions for engendering engagement is not sufficiently emphasised. In this chapter, we explore sociological approaches that can offer the possibility for developing a richer understanding of student engagement. We examine new research in which engagement is posited as emerging from collectively generated emotions, which then have implications for both cognition and behaviour.
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Olitsky, S., Milne, C. (2012). Understanding Engagement in Science Education: The Psychological and the Social. In: Fraser, B., Tobin, K., McRobbie, C. (eds) Second International Handbook of Science Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education, vol 24. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9041-7_2
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