Middle school represents quite a striking sinkhole for student engagement.
Grade 5: 74% of students engaged;
Grade 9: 40% of students engaged!
news.gallup.com/reports/210995
What drives the steep drop? Introduction of homework? Puberty? Less play?
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Hard to be good at school and be cool at the same time. Maybe impossible by definition :p
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There's a switch from being taught by one generalist teacher to 4-7 specialist teachers around grades six and seven.
The generalist has ~30 students while the specialists have ~150.
Both student and teacher know each other less.
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I'm not arguing against specialists (since they have plenty of benefits) nor am I claiming this is the only reason (your other guesses sound reasonable too) but I think this is a very "tactile" change from elementary school.
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I distinctly remember in middle school becoming a lot more interested in learning because the topics were so much more interesting (algebra! chemistry!) but also becoming much more disenchanted with "school". I remember hating "school" but really loving select classes/teachers.
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From memory, it was the decreasing perceived relevance to real life. Life was increasingly relationships & understanding my role as a maturing adult; school more (eg) geography, maths, and being told. Feels like travel, community ed, autonomy ed would have been more engaging.
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Definitely puberty. Middle School is all "hey, let get all these gangly kids at the most awkward time in their lives, throw them all together in one place, and see what happens"
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Is this unique to U.S. and Canadian students? The answer to that is likely insightful.
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It's a great question. I don't know!