The recently published anthology Partizipation und Schule [Participation and School], edited by Sabine Gerhartz-Reiter and Cathrin Reisenauer and published by Springer Verlag, deals with the opportunities and challenges of participation and co-determination in educational contexts in a variety of articles.

The article by Marie Gitschthaler, Franziska Lessky, and Erna Nairz-Wirth from the Education Sciences Group examines, on the basis of an evaluation study, the extent to which self-directed learning can promote student engagement - i. e., learner participation and their sense of belonging to the educational institution - and counteract dropout. The article presents findings based on quantitative and qualitative data, as well as an analysis of educational trajectories. The study was designed as a comparative case study in which groups that learn self-directed are compared with groups that teach and learn using traditional methods, using a longitudinal mixed-methods approach. The results of the study point to the importance of self-directed learning for increasing student engagement and reducing dropout rates.

Further information about the research project