Reframing Engagement: A Sociocultural Approach to Learning, Behavioral Climate, and Developmental Equity

• In Event: Fostering Engagement for All: Advancing Socioculturally Inclusive Theory, Research, and Practice in Student Engagement

Abstract

This presentation introduces the Development-in-Sociocultural-Context (DISC) Model of Student Engagement, a comprehensive framework that positions engagement as a dynamic and socially embedded process shaped by youth’s developmental competencies, relational ecologies, and sociocultural-historical contexts. Drawing from developmental systems theory and sociocultural perspectives on learning, the DISC Model advances a holistic understanding of engagement that moves beyond intraindividual factors to incorporate the broader structures, relationships, and ideologies that shape how young people access, experience, and participate in educational settings (Wang et al., 2019). It asserts that youth engagement is cultivated not in isolation, but through cumulative transactions between young people’s health, motivation, identity development, and the sociocultural and institutional systems in which they are embedded.

To demonstrate the DISC Model’s practical relevance, our presentation draws on two long-standing research-practice partnerships: the Parent Engagement Project and the Just Discipline Project. Findings from the Parent Engagement Project illustrate how ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) within families serves as a protective and promotive factor in adolescents’ engagement and achievement. A series of meta-analyses reveal that ERS practices—especially cultural socialization and bias preparation—strengthen academic values and psychosocial well-being among youth of color, offering resilience against racial discrimination (Huguley et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2020). The project also documents how parent involvement evolves in adolescence, emphasizing the importance of warm parent-child relationships and home-based learning support.

Complementing this family-level work, the Just Discipline Project interrogates the role of school climate, exclusionary discipline, and restorative practices in shaping engagement. Empirical evidence reveals that suspensions for minor infractions disproportionately target Black students and decrease behavioral and academic engagement across classrooms (Skiba et al., 2014)—not only for the suspended students, but also for their peers (Del Toro & Wang, 2022; Wang et al., 2023). In response, the Just Discipline Project developed and tested a restorative justice intervention that reduces disciplinary disparities, fosters institutional trust, and promotes culturally responsive engagement through practices that are trauma-informed, developmentally attuned, and relationally grounded (Huguley et al., 2022).

Taken together, we present a model of student engagement that centers equity, cultural responsiveness, and the developmental needs of youth. It calls for interdisciplinary approaches that integrate education, mental health, and child welfare to address systemic barriers to engagement. By examining how engagement emerges within and across family and school ecologies, the DISC Model offers a robust theoretical and applied framework for researchers, educators, and policymakers working to support the resilience, identity, and agency of young people in structurally unequal systems.

The presentation will highlight the following provocative/novel insights:
● Engagement Mirrors Structural Conditions: The DISC Model reframes disengagement as a response to systemic exclusion, highlighting how power, identity, and opportunity shape student engagement.
● Culturally Grounded Practices Foster Engagement: When used intentionally, ethnic-racial socialization and restorative justice serve as essential supports that foster trust, protect against discrimination, and lay the foundation for student engagement.
● Research-to-Practice Agendas as Structural Interventions: Research-to-practice agendas challenge academic insularity and mobilize scholarship as a tool for disrupting inequitable systems and advancing contextually responsive change.

Authors

• Christina Scanlon, University of Chicago

• James P. Huguley, University of Pittsburgh

• Ming-Te Wang, University of Chicago