Considering the experiences of ‘underachieving’ and ‘overachieving’ students

Abstract

‘Underachievement’ has been one of the dominant discourses in education in recent times, but it is unclear what is meant by the term ‘underachievement’, and there is no widely accepted way of defining or measuring it. This paper describes the final stage of a large study which used contextualised models to identify students who may be underachieving and also overachieving in national tests at the end of Key Stage 3. Results suggested that the students who were identified in this study as underachieving were a very heterogeneous group, comprising students from across the ability range, from both sexes and with a range of background characteristics. Twenty students, both underachievers and overachievers, were randomly selected for interview. I examine whether there are any differences in how the two groups of students report their experiences of school. The findings suggest that any differences between the attitudes and aspirations of these students had little to do with whether they were ‘underachieving’ or ‘overachieving’ or whether they were male or female, and thus bring into question the usefulness of the concept of ‘underachievement’.