The Psychology of the ‘Disengaged’

Abstract

This chapter will consider what various psychological perspectives have to offer in terms of understanding how educators respond to children and young people who are frequently described in policy discourse as ‘disengaged’ from their education. Following a survey of four distinct psychological perspectives on learner engagement, we consider how each of these perspectives can be applied in an everyday classroom situation to generate different kinds of educational responses. We argue that psychological perspectives on learner engagement offer much scope to address the complexity of learner engagement as not just a behavioural phenomenon, but as an emotional and cognitive one too. However, with the ongoing expanse of technologies offering educational establishments a quick and convenient means of amalgamating vast sets of behavioural learner data, challenges lie ahead for the field.