Student engagement research: thinking beyond the mainstream

Student engagement is highly visible in higher education research about learning and teaching, but lacks a single meaning. It can be conceived narrowly as a set of student and institutional behaviours in a classroom or holistically and critically as a social–cultural ecosystem in which engagement is the glue linking classroom, personal background and the wider community as essential contributors to learning. The narrow view is characterized as a mainstream view of student engagement, and the holistic and critical view as thinking beyond this mainstream. The article first discusses the mainstream view. Here, engagement is seen as a generic indicator of quality learning and teaching and successful student outcomes. Second, it critiques this view, arguing that it is too narrow and should embrace the more holistic vision. Third, the article discusses a holistic view of student engagement. Foremost, it advocates active student participation in classroom and curriculum management, wider community development through critical active citizenship and personal and social well-being.