Australia's policy imperatives for improved student performance have again put the spotlight on the pervasive disengagement of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Rather than finding more evidence about how schooling "does not work" for some young people and how background impacts on that, this paper argues for contributions to a different kind of knowledge by turning to these same young people about what "does work" to engage them in their learning at school. Consequently, the view put forward here is for an approach that turns the focus" from" disengagement "to" engagement and "from" youth as the problem "to" youth as part of the solution. Accordingly, this paper provides a synthesis of literature that privileges democratic youth participation through a strength-based approach to youth investigating educational engagement.