Abstract
The conviction that the goals of education should extend beyond situations to include long-term self-processes calls for exploring the relations between students' situated actions—their motivation for engagement in school—and their identity. Each of the five articles in this special issue is based in a different contemporary motivational framework: expectancy-value, self-determination theory, interest, self-system, and the sociocultural perspective. Each article also focuses on somewhat different self and identity processes and describes a novel conceptualization of the relations between motivation and identity. The articles, and the commentary that probes them, represent but a few of the various ways by which motivational and self-identity processes may be theoretically related and of the research directions that such theorizing may promote. As a collection, these articles highlight the potential of linking the motivation and identity literatures for advancing educational–psychological theory and research as well as educational practice.
Notes
1Of importance, the focus of this issue—relating motivational theories to identity processes—is different from the complementary focus on relating identity theories to motivational processes.