Student engagement is widely viewed as an important antecedent to learning and achievement; however, research finds that engagement declines sharply as students advance through school. Graduation projects and senior projects have been endorsed by practitioners and researchers for their rigor, content-area depth, and promise to engage students in advanced academic work. This study explores whether or not International Baccalaureate's extended essay realizes this promise and whether its effectiveness as a vehicle for engaging students is influenced by school or programmatic factors. A phenomenon called “cohort culture” helps to explain differences in students’ engagement levels. Cohort culture refers to the attitudes, values, and practices that students in a particular group negotiate through interaction with one another and in reaction to the requirements and expectations placed on them by their institutional context. For the students in this study, it was not only the characteristics of the task, the expectations of their teachers, and the features of the program and school that promoted or impeded engagement; it was also their peers’ reactions and responses to the assignment. Teachers and administrators who are interested in promoting engagement should consider the ways in which they either reinforce or challenge a cohort's culture: examining the assumptions they make about certain cohorts or classes, how they communicate and convey these understandings to their students, and how these messages may in turn influence student attitudes and behaviors.
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