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Chapter 1 - School Adjustment

More than Doing OK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2025

Moshe Israelashvili
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
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Summary

A common mistake is to identify adjustment with positive behaviors and successful performance. Thus, for a significant rate of school students there is a gap between teachers’ and parents’ impressions and the students’ internal feelings of adjusting to school. However, the gap is bidirectional, with some students feeling adjusted to school even though their academic achievements are moderate or low. The existing literature on school adjustment supplies rich and relatively consistent information regarding the process that leads some students to dislike their school setting, become unmotivated to learn, and to drop out of school. However, the literature on students on the other edge (i.e., who adjusted well to, and even flourish at school) is partial and limited. Generally, comprehensive measurement of students’ school adjustment leads to the subdivisions of school students as Maladjusted, Accurately Behaved, Adjusted, and Flourishing.

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