ABSTRACT
Many current school reform initiatives in the United States are motivated by concern among educators over low school achievement (Holmes Group, 1987; National Coalition of Advocates for Students, 1988; National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). A common element in many of these discussions is implicit or explicit reference to students’ motivational deficiencies (Dunn, 1987). However, there are significant limitations with the rather narrow perspective often found in discussion of motivational factors in schooling. In this chapter, we argue that current theories of motivation are limited in that they conceptualize motivation as an individual “in-the-head” phenomenon, with little or no attention paid to the sociocultural context and the interpersonal processes within which individual activity occurs.
