Our understanding of what motivates students to achieve at school has grown exponentially over the past several decades. We have learned much about the role of students’ achievement-related self-beliefs, as manifest in values, goal orientations, perceived efficacy, mindsets, and a sense of autonomy and self-determination (see Wentzel & Miele, 2016). The premise of the current issue is that these intrapersonal beliefs tell us only half the story. What we have yet to develop is a clear understanding of how the social contexts within which children live and learn contribute to and complement these social-cognitive processes to shape academic motivation, engagement, and achievement. We argue that what is missing from much of the current work on motivation is recognition of the rich and nuanced characteristics of students’ interpersonal relationships, learning contexts, and cultures and their attendant social processes, all of which can influence an individual student’s motivation and engagement. For example, social contexts engender motivationally relevant beliefs and actions by way of interactions with others, within interpersonal relationships and social groups, and as a function of broader social structures such as socially constructed learning environments and cultural milieus. In doing so, they can influence student motivation directly, by promoting outcomes such as behavioral competencies and need satisfaction, or contribute to academic motivation indirectly by shaping students’ achievement-related beliefs (e.g., self-efficacy, values, self-determination). Therefore, until the range of social factors that bear on the development of motivation are surfaced and integrated in a theoretically coherent fashion, the field lacks a comprehensive and comprehensible set of guidelines for interventionists, educators, parents, and others interested in designing motivation-enhancing social contexts.

The notion that social contexts can influence the development of motivational beliefs has a long theoretical history beginning with the work of James McClelland (e.g., need for affiliation; McClelland, 1985). Over the years, social constructs such as relatedness (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1991), sense of belonging (e.g., Goodenow, 1993), social motivation (Weiner, 1993), and social goals (Ford, 1983), aspects of interpersonal relationships such as parent and teacher beliefs and values concerning academic ability and subject matter (e.g., deCharms, 1984; Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Maehr & Midgley, 1989), interactions with peers (e.g., Schunk, 1987), and mechanisms of interpersonal influence (e.g., modeling; Bandura, 1986) have been proposed in theoretical accounts of motivation. More recently, authors of major motivational theories (see e.g., Wigfield & Koenka, 2021) have acknowledged students’ social worlds by noting the importance of relationships and interpersonal processes (e.g., SEVT, Eccles & Wigfield, 2020; attribution theory, Graham, 2020; social cognitive theory, Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020), contextual supports and situated practices (self-determination theory, Ryan & Deci, 2020), and broader cultural influences (SEVT, Eccles & Wigfield, 2020) for understanding students’ motivation to achieve.

Despite the longstanding and widespread acknowledgement of the important role of social contexts in motivation, however, discussions of these processes to date typically lack both scope and depth. With respect to scope, for example, current accounts of motivation readily acknowledge the crucial role of context and culture (e.g., Koenka, 2020). However, context is often used as a catch-all phrase to reflect a classroom or school-level ecology; culture is often relegated to discussions of gender and racial diversity. Few provide specific guidance as to how each might be defined and studied. The scope of this work clearly could benefit from greater attention to the complex social ecologies of academic functioning and development (e.g., Phelan et al., 1998; Skinner et al., 2022a, 2022b; Spencer, 2006), and how they might be integrated with more traditional perspectives on motivation. An additional issue concerning social ecologies is that many models are considered to be universal; they rarely discuss the ways that social contexts differ for and differentially treat students from diverse backgrounds.

With regard to depth, theories rarely specify the more nuanced “how and why” of social influence on academic motivation. For example, accounts of interpersonal relationships with teachers and their impact on student motivation have been fairly superficial, with teacher effects discussed primarily as contextually situated factors that influence motivational beliefs (Nolen, 2020; Wigfield & Koenka, 2020). In this regard, theorists typically note a number of teacher practices that, for example, support (or thwart) needs for autonomy (Ryan & Deci, 2020), provide ability feedback via instruction (Graham, 2020; Schunk & DiBenedetto, 2020; Urdan & Kaplan, 2020), or convey meaning systems concerning achievement (e.g., via grading systems and testing; Nolen; Ryan & Deci).

Treatments of parent and peer influence have been more in-depth. Parents are central to socialization effects highlighted in SEVT (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020), acting as influencers of academic task values and expectancies for success by way of their own belief systems and culturally influenced social roles and stereotypes. Peer influence also has been proposed to influence student motivation. Scholars have focused on a range of processes, including dyadic exchanges, creation of classroom ecologies (Graham, 2020; Kindermann & Gest, 2018), communication of information concerning self-efficacy and goal setting, primarily by way of modeling and social comparison (e.g., Schunk, 1987), reinforcement of norms and values (Bell et al., 2021; Graham et al., 1998), and provisions of social support (Wentzel, 2018). However, much about these social processes has yet to be unpacked and studied.

In short, while we acknowledge the rich and powerful contributions of foundational motivation theories to our understanding of the intrapersonal processes that contribute to student achievement, we encourage scholars to devote as much attention to the other half of the story, by developing conceptualizations that reflect the true complexity of social forces and specifying the processes by which they motivate students to engage in learning-related activities. We believe that unless the processes that explain how these influences take place are explicitly acknowledged and studied in greater depth and frequency, the field of motivation will not move forward in meaningful ways.

There are several necessary pathways to achieve an integration of current perspectives, while also building out overarching conceptualizations in both scope and detail. First, models of social motivational constructs and social processes need to be combined with extant theories of academic motivation. For example, in the developmental literature constructs such as relatedness, sense of belongingness and working models of relationships are well-developed and widely recognized as intrapersonal beliefs that are crucial to personal well-being, effective interpersonal interactions, and healthy development in general (Pianta et al., 2003; Ryan & Deci, 2000). There is also ample evidence that these beliefs can contribute to academic accomplishments (e.g., Bergin & Bergin, 2009; Pianta et al.). However, the ways in which these beliefs interact with and influence academically focused motivation beliefs such as self-efficacy, subject matter values and interest, and learning goals have received scant attention. This should be a top priority for future work in this area.

Second, more precise definitions and process models of social contexts need to be articulated. Motivationally relevant contexts can be defined at multiple levels, with regard to relationships, larger social groups, social structures, and cultural milieu. Within each of these levels, more nuanced configurations exist, such as teacher-student relationships, friendships, or bully-victim dyads; peer networks, gangs, and classmates; characteristics, configurations, and demographics of learning groups, classrooms, and schools; and learning-related policies and ideologies associated with communities of practice. Each of these configurations requires careful consideration with respect to which aspects of intrapersonal processes they might influence, their impact on each other, and the ways in which these levels create and are created by overarching social and cultural ecologies. Indeed, each provides unique (both positive and negative) as well as coordinated (both synergistic and antagonistic) affordances for motivated action that can explain students’ successes and failures at school.

Addressing these theoretical gaps concerning the ways that interpersonal and social factors influence intrapersonal beliefs and other motivationally relevant processes is an essential task if we are to improve educational practice and create learning environments that support the development of all students. Toward this end, we have invited authors in this special issue to highlight theoretical frameworks and targeted motivation constructs that inform these issues, describe specific social constructs and processes that might explain contextual influences, and propose new directions for motivation science that will integrate these social perspectives with more traditional intrapersonal models of motivation. Their papers focus on a range of social processes emanating from interpersonal contexts most central to children’s lives, including relationships with family, teachers, and peers, and they focus on ways in which these processes support (or undermine) students’ motivation to learn. Additional topics include discussion of how characteristics of these relationships intersect with and are shaped by the broader social contexts in which they are embedded, such as socially engineered learning structures and culturally based ideologies.

The Papers in This Issue

The special issue begins with a broad overview of ways that motivation contexts can be conceptualized. Drawing on bioecological, ecocultural, and phenomenological models, Skinner and colleagues (Skinner et al., 2022a, 2022b) provide an excellent example of expanded scope in that the authors offer more comprehensive and meaningful definitions of context to guide the field. Specifically, they propose an overarching developmental systems framework that views motivational contexts as parts of complex multi-level social ecologies. The authors consider three levels of this framework, showing how each one can contribute to a more comprehensive and comprehensible picture of motivationally relevant social contexts. First, they discuss the microsystem of the classroom, explaining how it incorporates multiple layers that serve different functions, such as the interpersonal context, the learning context, the management context, and community connections. They then suggest strategies for distinguishing the features of these contexts that are most relevant to motivational development. Second, they discuss the mesosystem level, which incorporates multiple microsystems, like home/family, school/teachers/classmates, and neighborhood/peers. Here, they propose different ways that the multiple worlds students navigate can be structured and operate to shape motivation. Third, they explore the macrosystem level, highlighting societal and cultural forces that drive risk and resources into the mesosystem and microsystem of students; these forces create stratified niches that differentially support the motivation of students from diverse backgrounds. The authors argue that such overarching frameworks promise to be both integrative and generative, not only providing places for the many contextual factors already identified in current motivational theories but also suggesting ways to uncover additional factors and examine how they work together to promote student motivation and its development.

Continuing with a focus on broader social ecologies, Gray and colleagues (2022) remind us that the search for generalized, context-free principles of motivation and learning ignores the rich diversity of culture and personal history that can motivate students to reach their full academic potential. In doing so, these authors illustrate how the scope of current motivation theory and perspectives on diversity might be extended to acknowledge notions of belongingness that reflect the integrity and vitality of culturally based epistemologies and lived experiences. Using Black Americans as a case in point, they discuss the concept of communalism and how communal learning environments can provide additional insights into the motivational lives of students. They argue that communalism can facilitate motivation to learn by providing continuity between the values and ideologies embedded in Black families and communities and the cultures of schools in which Black students are asked to learn. Acknowledging the intersection between personal relationships, learning structures, and culture, Gray et al. also highlight the importance of students taking responsibility and providing social and academic support for their peers. They describe this aspect of communalism as an integral part as well as the outcome of culturally -relevant and motivationally supportive curriculum and instruction. As they note: “At their best, education settings that foster a sense of communalism provide opportunities for students to learn how to look out for others—and to believe that personal and professional success is possible because they are part of an academic community that invests in their success and will not let them fail” (in this issue).

Starr and colleagues (2022) provide a more differentiated view of social contexts by arguing that socially based constructs and processes must be considered if we are to accurately understand STEM motivational and socialization processes within Black and Latinx families. In doing so, they offer a model of socialization processes that combines the basic tenets of motivation theory (e.g., SVET, Eccles & Wigfield, 2020) with culturally grounded ecological models that describe the cultural and racial/ethnic processes that can impact minority youth. Their integrative model posits that experiences with racism and oppression can influence both social supports and barriers to educational opportunities and, subsequently, shape beliefs about who should be able to engage and succeed in STEM learning. They give particular emphasis to cultural strengths, suggesting that Black and Latinx families possess values such as familism, faith, and kinship that give added meaning to motivational beliefs about STEM. Their meta-analysis of studies that focuses on these issues provides convincing support for their integrated model. The model described by Starr et al. also provides an excellent example of how traditional motivation beliefs typically studied in school settings (e.g., values, self-efficacy) are nested in broader contexts of parenting and culture. Noting the importance of examining within-group variability, these authors point out that students’ beliefs about and experiences with STEM education are ultimately embedded within specific family, community and cultural values, and socialization practices. These authors also remind us of the benefits of contextualizing student motivation within multiple theoretical traditions, that is, by integrating developmental and racial/ethnic-specific theories to inform academic motivation.

Graham and colleagues (2022) discuss how students’ sense of belonging is related to the nature of racial/ethnic contexts, including the size of one’s racial/ethnic group in school across critical school transitions, and perceived representation of one’s group in critical STEM courses. They also discuss how the difference between school-level and course-level representation is a central social motivational construct that relates to racial/ethnic minority students’ engagement and achievement. Drawing on stage-environment fit theory (Eccles & Midgley, 1989), these authors argue that structural barriers at the school level (e.g., racial tracking, course-related opportunities) and segregation at the classroom and course levels can be essential factors that determine “fit” and students’ feelings of belongingness. They provide evidence that students feel a greater sense of belonging when they attend schools and classes with more same-race/ethnic peers, and that school-level diversity can diminish the salience of one’s own group size and the perception of being outnumbered. They also demonstrate how racial/ethnic representation of schools between pre- and post-school transitions can influence feelings of belonging and how segregation in courses also predicts declines in belongingness over the middle school years. Based on their findings, Graham and colleagues argue that “motivation researchers concerned with diversity need to decouple racial/ethnic group size from racial/ethnic group status and avoid terminology (e.g., majority and minority groups) that conflates the two” (in this issue). They further stress that greater attention be given to the role of group norms in research on school belonging. Finally, they demonstrate that both subjective experiences and the racial diversity of schools, classrooms, and courses matter.

With an eye towards developing a theory of relational motivation, Robinson (2022) proposes an integrative Motivating Teacher-Student Relationships (TSRs) framework. Her framework illustrates how broadening the scope of models central to motivation theory to combine with those that define social relationships can shed light on what motivates teachers to build positive relationships with students. Robinson notes that although scholars generally acknowledge the importance of TSRs, they are routinely overlooked or undervalued when compared to other task-related instructional activities. However, she argues that developing positive TSRs should be an educational priority given their strong relation to student motivation and learning, to quality of instruction, and to teachers’ own well-being. To establish a foundation for future study and intervention work, Robinson’s framework draws on role theory, SEVT (i.e., values, Eccles & Wigfield, 2020), and social cognitive theory (e.g., self-efficacy, Bandura, 1986) to describe the processes whereby teachers become energized and committed to engage in relationship-building behaviors with their students. Robinson’s multi-level framework for understanding teacher motivation to build positive TSRs is also grounded in sociocultural contexts that shape teachers’ beliefs about themselves and that can directly facilitate or undermine the development of these relationships. For example, although TSRs are specific to individual students, she argues that schools, professions, policies, and societal factors are interconnected contexts that can facilitate or undermine teachers’ motivational beliefs associated with TSRs. These social contexts can influence teachers’ beliefs through a range of processes, including modeled behavior, interpersonal and instructional norms, school-based procedures, and local, state, and federal policies.

Kilday and Ryan (2022) focus on ways in which peer ecologies at school (i.e., friendships, social status, and the classroom peer group) can enhance students’ classroom motivation through social supports and socialization. They illustrate further how these peer-related processes can be enhanced by teachers who are positioned to influence the peer ecology. Kilday and Ryan begin by highlighting why and how peers matter for students’ motivation, suggesting two primary pathways of peer influence. First, peers provide social supports that enhance a sense of belonging and emotional engagement. Second, peers learn from each other by way of socialization processes, such as information exchange, reinforcement, and modeling, that contribute to the development of students’ achievement beliefs, values, and goals. In describing these pathways, they explore the role of context as it plays out in the culture of support and norms that characterize the classroom peer group. Next, Kilday and Ryan review evidence concerning the teacher’s role in facilitating positive peer relationships, often referred to as a teacher’s “invisible hand.” Their discussion suggests ways in which teachers can shape how much students are supportive of one another; they also illustrate how teachers’ relationship with students can also affect students’ friendship selection, levels of acceptance and rejection among classmates, and the overall classroom peer climate. In closing, these authors provide practical suggestions for specific strategies that teachers can use to actively manage social status dynamics and peer relationships. They also provide a foundation for future research and theory building based on the intersection of peer relationships, teacher-student relationships, and students’ motivation.

The next three papers focus on specific constructs that have relevance for understanding the social ecologies of motivation. Wentzel’s (2022) paper adds depth to a fundamental social component of motivation to learn, namely, the experience of care. Wentzel situates care within a competence-in-context model that brings together both intrapersonal beliefs about academic tasks (i.e., “competence”) and teacher-student and peer relationships at school (i.e., “context”) in their influence on classroom goal pursuit; she also discusses how caring teacher and peer relationships can amplify or buffer the effects of academic beliefs on motivational outcomes. Wentzel draws from ecological and developmental traditions to describe caring relationships within a multi-level system that includes transactional dyadic relationships on the level of social interaction, intrapersonal beliefs concerning dyadic relationships at the level of the individual, and higher-order group-level relationship systems within which dyadic relationships are embedded. Specifically, dyadic relationships with teachers and friends are defined with regard to dimensions of bidirectional social interactions and exchanges. Dyadic relationships also are discussed in terms of each partner’s perceptions and representations of the relationship, including perceived caring and emotional support. Finally, relationships are described with respect to their embeddedness in social groups (e.g., peer groups) and larger social contexts (e.g., classrooms, communities). Within these relationship contexts, Wentzel illustrates how a sense of belongingness and multiple aspects of social acceptance contribute to notions of care. Key themes in this paper direct our attention to the specifics of measurement as well as mechanisms through which interpersonal relationships and experiences of care can have an impact on the development of students’ motivation and engagement.

Liem and Senko’s (2022) paper reminds us that the scope of work on students’ multiple goal setting has remained fairly static in its focus on academic achievement goals, despite the fact that students pursue multiple academic and social goals on a daily basis. In response to this gap, they propose an updated goal complex model that highlights ways in which academic goal setting (e.g., mastery and performance goals) and social goal setting (e.g., social approval, social concern goals) are often interdependent and coordinated; they demonstrate how academic goals can serve as the means towards pursuing and subsequently realizing social goals. They also describe the added theoretical value and practical benefits of acknowledging the hierarchical and systemic relations among social and academic goals for understanding motivation to learn. In addition, Liem and Senko propose a model to guide the study of how social contexts can influence goal pursuit and the development of academic-social goal complexes. Specifically, they discuss the roles of parents, teachers, classmates/peers, and broader social ecologies in promoting student’s adoption of academic and social goals. Their nested model also suggests that students’ beliefs about the self, task, social environment, and the interplay among these beliefs are determined, in part, by cultural belief systems as they are communicated to students at home and in school. Liem and Senko propose further that these belief systems influence goal choice and strength of goal pursuit, as well as the relations among goals as they form broader goal complexes and networks.

Park and Ramirez (2022) remind us that motivation to learn involves more than just beliefs as they play out in classroom contexts. Focusing on ways in which goal pursuits can be thwarted in the classroom, they highlight the role of frustration as it is engendered by counter-productive teacher-student interactions. These authors situate frustration as an emotion that often describes the more challenging qualities of teacher-student interactions but one that is rarely studied in the motivation literature. They provide unique insights into how roadblocks to teachers’ attempts to achieve their goals for students can give rise to feelings of frustration; teachers’ perceptions and appraisals of their interactions with students provide a pathway through which these roadblocks can influence frustration and subsequent instructional strategies and their overall quality. Drawing on the work related to cost–benefit analysis (e.g., SEVT, Eccles & Wigfield, 2020), Park and Ramirez provide a more in-depth perspective on processes associated with frustration by describing various interventions designed to improve teacher appraisals and the quality of teacher-student interactions. In this regard, they offer intervention approaches based on empathy and problem solving, reappraisal of interactions, and simplification and transparency of assigned instructional tasks. Their model offers the field a fresh look at how emotions, and frustration in particular, can advance understanding of ways in which the quality of social interactions can enhance or undermine students’ motivation to learn and teachers’ motivation to teach.

Finally, two commentaries provide additional insights and new directions for studying social contexts and student motivation. Smith and colleagues (2022/this issue) highlight the important role that teacher practices and positive teacher-student interactions can play in supporting an understudied aspect of motivation—students’ social identity. They propose that many classroom interventions to enhance motivation are effective, in part, due to procedures that communicate to students their potential for academic growth but also their identity as a whole person. They argue that “ensuring students feel they are seen in an “expansive” light—as academically capable and more than just their academic success or failure—can help build more inclusive and equitable school environments” (in this issue). Guay (2022/this issue) provides a broader lens for viewing the themes presented in the special issue by discussing challenges that remain to the field. First, he reminds us that much work is yet to be done to integrate central motivational constructs into a single overarching framework. Second, he expands on the measurement challenges related to research on interpersonal relationships and calls for more collective approaches that include parent, teacher, and peer supports for motivation. Third, Guay reminds us of the need to address more completely the role of educational policies and other mesosystem and macrosystem factors that can impact students’ motivation at school. Finally, he provides us with some important new avenues for research on motivation and social contexts.

In summary, the authors in this special issue highlight the crucial importance of the social contexts within which students live and learn. While acknowledging the centrality of intrapersonal belief systems in motivating academic outcomes, these scholars focus on the other half of the story. They provide constructs and conceptualizations that not only integrate social and academic models of motivation but also improve our understanding of the many ways that motivation to achieve academically is shaped by relationships, interactions, social ecologies, and societal forces. In doing so, they offer fresh perspectives and challenges to the field. They also provide examples of more complex and inclusive motivational models that consider ways in which social processes and influences are similar and unique across relationships with parents, peers, and teachers, and across levels, from dyadic interactions to cultural milieus. In doing so, these papers suggest ways that social contextual models can expand the scope and depth of work on motivation. The scope of extant models and constructs can be extended to consider how sociocultural contexts embedded in a range of nested social ecologies can influence students’ motivation to learn. Such models also can be enhanced by focusing on within-group differences of subgroups of students from different backgrounds and who live in different social worlds. Similarly, the theoretical depth of models and constructs can be extended by crafting more precise and nuanced definitions of what is meant by context and through discussions of the mechanisms through which social contexts exert their effects on student motivation. We hope that rich discussions of “the other half of the story” can inspire additional theory building, contribute to an agenda for future research, and lead to clearer guidance for practice and intervention.