Student Disengagement in Inclusive Icelandic Education: A Question of School Effect in Reykjavík

In this chapter we investigate school effects on student disengagement as expressed by school misconduct among students in the last year of compulsory education in the capital area of Reykjavík in Iceland. We build on an input-process-output model. Multilevel analysis was used on the Icelandic data gathered in 2014–2015 (1996 students in 10th grade, age 15 in 44 schools) as a part of the ISCY study. We examine how the input variables socioeconomic status, both at school and individual level, affect students’ behavior disengagement, also in light of gender, and if these effects are mediated through the three process variables: students’ academic self-efficacy, their perception of value of education, and their relationship with their teachers. Results showed that school effect and socioeconomical composition of school predicted behavioral disengagement among boys and these effects where independent of individual-level objective and subjective SES and the process variables. Results for girls where different, as after controlling for individual-level objective and subjective SES, effects of school and SES composition of school were nonsignificant. The process variables all significantly predicted behavioral engagement for both boys and girls. The results call for further exploration of the gender effect and the school effect for the boys.