Race, social class, student engagement, and unequal literacy development in middle school English classrooms

Using data from the Partnership for Literacy study, a two-state study of instruction and achievement growth in 119 middle school English and language arts classrooms, I investigate the determinants and consequences of student engagement. Previous research in the sociology of education suggests that black students and students from socio-economically disadvantaged family backgrounds develop anti-school norms, and have lower levels of engagement during classroom instruction. Theories in the social-psychology of achievement motivation suggest that students who enter class with weaker reading and writing skills will be less engaged during English and Language arts instruction. I find that within classrooms lower social class students are less engaged than more advantaged students on two dimensions of student engagement, they participate less often in classroom discourse, asking and answering fewer questions, and they exert less effort on classroom reading and writing assignments. Black students are no less likely to be engaged than white students. However, initial achievement is a strong predictor of student engagement, including participation in classroom discourse and student effort on classroom tasks.; Differential levels of student effort, but not participation in classroom discourse, explain why particular groups of students, especially socio-economically disadvantaged students, experience lower levels of achievement growth. Participation in classroom discourse and student effort both predict the grades that a student receives. Previous research suggests that teachers can influence the distribution of student engagement within classrooms, increasing the effort of students with weaker skills, by fostering a favorable evaluative climate in their classrooms. I demonstrate that teachers can foster a favorable evaluative climate during whole-class instruction by engaging in dialogic instruction. In classrooms where teacher questions postpone evaluation and focus on provoking student thought and analysis, levels of student effort are more evenly dispersed among the class as a whole, and the association between initial achievement and effort is weaker.