Previous research revealed the connection between students’ behavioral and emotional engagement and a supportive classroom environment. One of the primary tools teachers have to create a supportive classroom environment is effective feedback. In this study, we assessed the supportive classroom environment using the perception shared by all students from the same classroom of teachers’ use of effective feedback. We aimed to explore the effect of such an environment on students’ behavioral engagement and school identification. Using a probabilistic sample of 1,188 students from 75 classrooms across 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th grades, we employed multilevel regression modeling with random intercept and fixed slopes. We explored the effects of both individual perceptions of teachers’ use of effective feedback and the supportive classroom environment on student engagement. The analyses identified that students who perceived that their teachers use more effective feedback had a higher level of behavioral engagement and school identification. Once we controlled the effects of these individual perceptions of teachers’ effective feedback, we still observed the effect of a supportive classroom environment on student engagement. So, in classrooms where teachers used more effective feedback creating a supportive classroom environment, students had higher school identification and behavioral engagement levels, regardless of their individual perceptions of teachers’ feedback. The association between variables remained significant even after controlling students’ characteristics (gender, nationality, mother’s level of education, history of grade retention) and classroom characteristics (grade level, type of school, number of students at grade level). Our findings support the potential of teachers’ feedback practices to foster students’ school identification and behavioral engagement to build a more inclusive school environment and value students’ diversity.

This study explored the link between teachers’ feedback and students’ behavioural engagement with school identification. Using a sample of 2534 students from 6th to 12th school year, we examined whether their perceptions about teachers’ feedback were related to their behavioural engagement and mediated by their school identification. We also explore whether this relation was moderated by students’ year of schooling and by the type of secondary course they were enrolled and the differences of latent means between these groups. Results confirmed the expected mediation: teachers’ feedback was associated with an increased behavioural engagement via increased school identification. Only the type of students’ secondary course moderated this relation. Students in the 12th year perceived that their teacher used less effective feedback and felt lower school identification than students in the early years of schooling. These finding illustrated the underlying mechanism through which teachers’ feedback affect students’ behavioural engagement with school.

"Students' engagement in school" is regarded in the literature as a current and valued construct despite the lack of empirical studies on its relationship with specific family variables. The present research aimed to survey studies on the correlation between students' engagement in school and family contexts, specifically in terms of the following variables: perceived parental support, socioeconomic and sociocultural levels, perceived rights, and parental educational styles. In order to describe the state of the art of student's "engagement in school" and "family variables", a narrative review was conducted. The studies reviewed highlight the role of family as a context with significance in student's engagement in school. However, further research is needed to deepen the knowledge of this topic considering potential mediator variables, either personal or school variables. It was also found the need for a psychosocial intervention aimed at providing support for the students coming from adverse family contexts who exhibit low level of engagement associated with poor academic achievement and a higher probability of dropping out.

One of the main problems faced by several educational systems around the world is educational exclusion. Portugal is no exception. It is recognized that those who drop out of education are at risk of social exclusion, with reduced opportunities to participate in society. In order to understand this, the authors reconceptualized the school as a community of practice, where students not only appropriate academic knowledge, but also new ways of being and perceiving themselves and others, and school practice itself. This article aims to better understand educational exclusion from the perspective of at-risk students. How do their constructed positional identities originate ways of being, relating and acting in relation to school agents and practices? The authors developed four focus group interviews with students presenting high rates of truancy and failure. Against their expectations, several students showed intent of pursuing their own path within the school system and saw themselves as capable of changing the conditions of failure in order to succeed in school.