When Adolescents with High Self-Concept Lose their Engagement in School

Abstract

Engagement in school and self-concept are two main constructs to explain the school adjustment. To understand how engagement might change during adolescence, we analyzed early and middle adolescents' engagement in school (cognitive, affective, behavioural, and personal agency) as a function of their level of self-concept. Participants were 685 adolescents, 296 males (43.2%) and 389 females between 11-17 years old. Among early adolescents, students with high self-concept always reported more cognitive, affective, behavioural, and personal agency engagement than students with low self-concept. However, among middle adolescents, students with high self-concept reported only higher affective and behavioral engagement than students with low self-concept. High self-concept middle adolescents reported levels of cognitive and agentic engagement that were the same as their low self-concept peers, suggesting that these high self-concept middle adolescents had lost their earlier high levels of cognitive and agentic engagement.