Chapter 12: Social Goals, Sense of Community, and Disconnectedness in School: An Exploratory Study of Three Ethnoreligious Groups in the Philippines

Educational psychology research has identified achievement goals as an important construct that is associated with students’ motivations, learning strategies, and learning achievement (Pintrich & Schunk, 1996; Wolters, 2004). Much of the research on theory on achievement goals has focused primarily on two achievement goal orientations, mastery and performance goals (Ames, 1992), their combination (Harackiewicz, Barron, Pintrich, Elliot & Thrash, 2002; Linnenbrink, 2005), and the approach and avoidance dimensions of the two goals (Elliot, 1999; Pintrich, 2000). But increasingly, educational psychologists have pointed to the need to look at students’ goals in schools as a system, and to consider other student goals that are not achievement related. Now, the research literature reflects a growing emphasis not just on more dynamic and system-approach to studying student goals (Boekaerts, Smit, & Busing, 2012; Mansfield, 2012), but on the social goals that students may have in learning contexts (King & Watkins, 2011; McInerney, 2012; Wentzel, Baker & Russel, 2012).