Engaging Schooling

In Engaging Schooling, the authors use case studies to engagingly demonstrate how schools can use pedagogical change to enable students from low SES backgrounds to benefit academically and socially from their schooling. The book, which builds on Exemplary Teachers of Students in Poverty from the same research team, deals with key issues around the reshaping of schooling and teaching, focusing on structures for mentoring and research practice among teachers. It significantly advances international literature that highlights the role of pedagogy for engagement in the educational success of students from low SES backgrounds. Moving beyond the individual classroom to focus on whole-school change, the book provides a clearer picture of processes which schools might undergo to engage students in low SES contexts, including teacher research, mentoring practices, instructional leadership and classroom discourses. The book will be of interest to all students, teachers and professional researchers in the field of teacher education.

Aslam Fataar, one of South Africa?s few educational sociologists working with ethnographic methods, captures the complex interactions and dynamics between social life, school processes and youth subjectivity in townships in the Western Cape. His work with concepts of mobilities and space is enormously generative, providing a way for teachers, principals, communities and policy makers to engage with the ?complex ecologies? of young people?s learning in urban schools. As an astute policy analyst, he also well knows the systemic barriers in the way of achieving this. The last chapter, on possibilities for pedagogical justice at the site of the school, considers how disengaged students might re-engage through leveraging explicit pedagogic connections between their lifeworlds and school practices. Acknowledging that pedagogy cannot be the only means for revitalising schooling, the author nevertheless insists that marginalised young people?s consent needs to be won by schools that make use of, rather than ignore, their strengths, knowledges and aspirations. The approach to the troubled question of youth and subjectivity is enlightening, and vital to understanding the post-apartheid city and school. The book fills a much-needed gap in educational sociology in South Africa.

"Brian Matthews brings intellectual rigour as well as passionate commitment to the important tasks of appreciating the role that emotional literacy can play in a refreshing education. It is a powerful combination. It is because he understands so well the need to attend to the purpose of education that he is so illuminating on the strategies that will give all young people the best possible chance to learn and to grow." James Park, Director, Antidote "This book will be read by individuals who have an interest in bringing about change in the presentcurriculum. School Science Review This book reveals the huge potential of engaging pupils with their emotions in the classroom, and presents evidence that when pupils work in this way they become more co-operative and help each other to learn. The book explores how schools can move beyond a focus on cognitive attainment through an emphasis on affective engagement, to help pupils develop better relationships of all kinds and prepare them for adulthood in a fast-changing world. For teachers, the book tackles the important questions of: What is emotional literacy and emotional intelligence? How can teachers incorporate pupils' emotional development into their lessons while nourishing and enhancing achievement? How is it possible to have a calm atmosphere in the classroom with pupils enjoying learning together? Engaging Education is the first book to link the issues of emotional literacy, equity and social justice, and the education of the whole child, thus providing the social and political context for emotional literacy. In connecting emotional literacy and equity with the structure of schooling, it establishes that co-educational schools can contribute to enabling boys and girls to relate to and understand each other. Based firmly on research, this innovative book gives teachers invaluable guidelines on what to concentrate on and what to avoid. It is key reading for teachers and trainee teachers as well as policymakers and all those concerned with education.

Engaging Families in Schools is a practical resource that provides strategies and ideas that will contribute to the effective engagement of families and the involvement of parents in their child’s education. Parental engagement with school staff has a significant and very positive impact on children’s learning, and strategies presented have been extensively trialled in a variety of different settings. Nicola S. Morgan shows school staff how to understand the importance of family engagement and evidence the outcomes. This book has been split into ten easily accessible units: Understanding the importance of parent engagement Using whole-school strategies to engage parents The role of the family engagement officer Engaging all parents Engaging Dads Engaging multicultural parents Difficult to engage parents Working with parents to improve student attainment Working with parents to improve behaviour and attendance Working with parents of children with additional needs This is a must-read guide for teaching and non teaching staff who wishes to bridge the gap between their student’s school and family life and understand the effects of positive family engagement.

Offers high school educators strategies and ideas for connecting with students who may be at risk for failing or dropping out, including tips for improving the school climate in ways that foster student support and create a supportive schoolwide climate.

“This is a useful, interesting and valuable work. The authors ask the difficult questions and attempt answers which, although complex, are written in an accessible and open manner. It deserves to be widely read.” Educational Review Engaging Teachers makes a deliberate attempt to reclaim the education discourse captured by new right politics and connect it with a radical democratic agenda for schooling. On its agenda are education markets, policy, leadership, professionalism, and communities. Engaging with these is conceived on at least two levels. First, as an invitation to teachers to become involved in reconstructing schooling for socially just purposes and in democratic ways. From this perspective, the politics of engagement is not simply a matter of acquiescence or resistance but is informed by a commitment to generate alternatives: teachers, parents and students making things happen rather than having things done to them. Also signalled is an intent to work collectively, exploring and acting on common interests and across uncommon ground. Second, the book also celebrates teachers engaging in these reconstructive efforts in attractive and meaningful ways. The attraction is decisions about schooling made by those they affect as well as decisions that are meaningful because they engage the interests of all.

When it comes to motivating people to learn, disadvantaged urban adolescents are usually perceived as a hard sell. Yet, in a recent MetLife survey, 89 percent of the low-income students claimed "I really want to learn" applied to them. What is it about the school environmentâ€"pedagogy, curriculum, climate, organizationâ€"that encourages or discourages engagement in school activities? How do peers, family, and community affect adolescents' attitudes towards learning? Engaging Schools reviews current research on what shapes adolescents' school engagement and motivation to learnâ€"including new findings on students' sense of belongingâ€"and looks at ways these can be used to reform urban high schools. This book discusses what changes hold the greatest promise for increasing students' motivation to learn in these schools. It looks at various approaches to reform through different methods of instruction and assessment, adjustments in school size, vocational teaching, and other key areas. Examples of innovative schools, classrooms, and out-of-school programs that have proved successful in getting high school kids excited about learning are also included.

Provides a framework for thinking about what can be done to increase student engagement in learning.