The opinions of 108 teachers, about what influenced adolescent students' motivation and de-motivation, were sought through interview, at sites in each of the UK, the USA and Russia. Teachers' opinions in all three milieux were found to concur - on the positive effects of: parental interest and involvement and parental dissatisfaction; partnership with parents; teacher-student relations; symbolic and material rewards; grades and marks; success in learning - and on the negative effects of some leisure pursuits and of potential post-school unemployment. However, the meaning to be attached to such concurrence is problematised by contextualising apparent agreement within significantly differing local arrangements for, and expectations of: partnership with parents; continuity and duration of teacher-student-parent relations; the development of teachers' professional learning from experience; the deployment of praise and criticism; the pedagogical use of assessment; and the deployment of out-of-school time. Amplifying effects of peer and community subcultures, on the influence of potential unemployment, were also found to differ between contexts. It is concluded that whilst points of concurrence in teachers' opinions are of undoubted interest for any general theory of motivation to learn in school, methods which explore the conceptual system and semantic structure of the background beliefs which inform the expressed opinions that respondents express are urgently needed. The paper argues that we need to be able to model the underlying expectations and constraints which lend structure and priority to the lived experience of being schooled.