Explaining away Aboriginality: causal modelling of academic self-concept and disengagement for indigenous and non-indigenous Australian students

The notion of academic disengagement, regardless of its specific conceptualisation (e.g., cognitive, affective or behavioural) is one that has received considerable attention within the educational and social psychological literature, especially with regard to disadvantaged minority groups. Implicit within a portion of the disengagement research is the assumption that notions of disengagement are largely a result of one’s racial/ethnic identity, thus potentially raising misattributions of the now rightfully maligned deficit models. With regard to this investigation, the validity of such ‘deficit’ models of disengagement shall be critically and quantitatively tested by utilising SEM causal modelling techniques. Specifically, the causal impact of secondary students’ Aboriginality (Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian) and academic self-concept will be tested over self-reports of academic disengagement (once a prior measure of disengagement has been accounted for). The results suggest that although Aboriginality held a significant correlation with disengagement (suggesting that Indigenous students are more likely to disengage from school), the causal impact of this variable is negated when the causal impact of academic self-concept was also considered. The implication of this research suggests that academic self-concept may be a key variable to unlocking trends of school disengagement that have been noted for Indigenous Australian students.