Boys' and Girls' Commitment to School: A Comparative Analysis of Empirical Research Findings
The present literature review focuses on the comparative study of boys and girls behavioral, affective, and cognitive engagement in school. Based on more than one hundred articles and book chapters retrieved from different database (psychINFO, ERIC, Medline, Social work abstract), it first aims to define the school engagement construct and its associated dimensions. Further, gender differences assessed in the empirical literature of the phenomenon are documented. Over the scientific literature, the main picture of school engagement appears relatively congruent and much more positive for girls. Boys more dismissive profile, especially for those coming from low socioeconomic background, remains difficult to interpret. However, considering that student disengagement can lead to their disinvestment from learning and eventually, can be associated with school dropout, gender differences in language arts need to be considered seriously. This review discusses multiple concerns regarding boys and girls engagement in school. It also emphasis on the importance of studying this issue using longitudinal research design to account for developmental continuity and discontinuity from the beginning of childhood to the end of adolescence.