Charles Dickens famously satirised the rationalism and mechanism of utilitarian educational ideas through the figure of Gradgrind in "Hard Times". Even in the nineteenth century there were very few people, in reality, who would have agreed that the education of children should be a matter of purely intellectual, rather than emotional,…

This exploratory study set out to investigate how a group of children, who were identified as underachieving in school, constructed understandings of themselves as learners inside and outside school. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and image-based methods with the children. Interviews were also conducted with their parents and…

We explore the conditions under which students engage with, or disengage from, learning at university within the context of increased student diversity. We discuss the concept and use of academic engagement and disengagement but focus on the dynamics of disengagement in two comparable first year computing modules at a pre- and a post-1992…