marc wheeler
Educational systems typically identify additional need through observable indicators such as attainment, behaviour, and classroom engagement. However, research increasingly suggests that outward participation does not necessarily reflect secure underlying functioning, as engagement may be maintained through regulatory effort, contextual alignment, or compensatory strategies. While existing participation frameworks conceptualise engagement as relational and context-dependent, they provide limited means of analysing how participation is sustained across time and changing demands. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a Sustainability Model of Educational Participation, which reconceptualises engagement as varying in resilience and vulnerability rather than simple presence or absence. The model introduces sustainability as a central analytic dimension and conceptualises participation through five interrelated domains: effort intensity, environmental dependence, contextual consistency, transition response, and temporal durability. Drawing on inclusive education theory, ecological models of development, and research on masking, school distress, and educational transitions, the paper argues that participation may be simultaneously present and fragile. The model extends existing frameworks by integrating temporal and effort-related dimensions, enabling participation to be interpreted in relation to its stability across contexts and over time. The paper outlines potential pathways for empirical investigation, including longitudinal mixed-method designs examining participation trajectories and outcomes such as wellbeing, disengagement, and support needs, providing a basis for earlier recognition of emerging vulnerability.