You say motivation, I say engagement : can we work this whole thing out?

Furlong (1991), in an appeal for the reconstruction of theoretical perspectives around disaffected school pupils, argues that psychologists often fail to understand fully the dimensions of social power and that many sociologists do not successfully consider the complexities of the individual. This paper considers dangers within such a misalignment of perspectives. It does this at the same time as it reports on a research project aimed at encouraging students who live in poverty to have more enduring and productive relationships with their school and education. The project takes up theoretical frames from the sociology of education and utilizes qualitative research methods. However, this paper pauses to reflect on whether its wide focus on pedagogical interruptions to the discourses of power as ways towards student engagement might be ignoring the possibility of important classroom interventions aimed at motivating individual students. Such a reflection throws up important questions for both sides of the sociology-psychology divide.