State of the art

State of the art has diachronically focused on two dimensions: the notion of relation, developed under a psychological (Wallon, 1997; Bruner, 2008; Vygotski, 1985) or under a sociological approach (Durkheim, 1963; Charlot, 1999; Dubet, 1997) and the notion of the context. Students’ characteristics such as school engagement (Appleton et al. 2008), self-regulation (Shunk, 1997), self-beliefs (Bandura, 1997), expectations (Morgan, 2005), ethnic minority background & socio-economic disadvantage (Bouhia et al. 2011), peer-influence (Rubin et al. 1998), & school characteristics such as ethnic & socioeconomic composition (Van Ewijk & Sleegers, 2010), teachers’ expectations (Brophy, 1993), type of school (Wenger, 2002), duration of compulsory education (Van der Steeg & Webbink, 2006), are repeatedly among the strongest determinants of ESL & low performance.