This research brief highlights findings from a qualitative study of the contextual factors that shape engagement in adult literacy education. Engagement is mental effort focused on learning and is a precondition to learning progress. Some researchers focus on engagement as a cognitive, or mental, process closely related to such things as motivation and self-efficacy. They seek to understand how the engagement process works and how it is related to learning. Others examine how learning context shapes engagement-how the educational environment affects how and whether learners engage. This study focused on the second tradition, how learning context shapes engagement, for a very practical reason: to a great extent adult educators control the educational context. Thus if they understand how the educational context shapes engagement, they can influence engagement in positive ways.