My project will analyse how novice teachers construct the link between social deprivation and educational underachievement. It will, furthermore, examine the significance of these perceptions about poverty in shaping novice teachers’ professional responses, as well as their identities and their sense of agency. Also explored will be the impact of a school’s institutional logics upon these constructions about poverty, the teaching practices aimed at addressing its effects, and the identity and sense of agency of novice teachers. A mixed methods study will be used to generate six case studies of novice teachers working in secondary schools in high deprivation communities, which will illuminate the interaction between these factors over time.