Early school-leaving is an issue of concern in mostcountries, including developed Western societies where itseverely limits life chances of individuals, compared tothose who have completed secondary education. Theproblem continues to be intractable in spite of research andeducational initiatives designed at both local and nationallevels. The well-documented statistical connection between,for example, gender and social class and early schoolleaving, do not, of themselves, provide an explanation atthe level of the individual student for the decision toabandon education prematurely, nor do they provide clearguidelines to schools and education authorities on ways toproceed in addressing the issue.The concepts of habitus and capital, as enunciated byBourdieu, together with the concept of power/knowledge asenunciated by Foucault and developed by feministpost-structuralists for the generation of identity politics,together provide a theoretical framework within which theanalysis of the observed phenomenon of early school leavingcan be structured.This paper is based on case-study research in foursecondary-level schools in the Republic of Ireland (oneinner city, two suburban, one rural) which providedinterview data from students, teachers and schoolprincipals. The theoretical framework described above isused to examine the reasons why some students reject or arerejected by the centralised national curriculum, and toexplore whether and how curricular change can effectivelyaddress the problem. It is suggested that the habitus' ofindividual students, structured by the forms of capitalavailable to them, is at variance both with the habitus'of their teachers and the imagined, idealised habituspostulated by the centrally prescribed curricula availableto them. This situation is further exacerbated by thediscourse of school effectiveness, especially where this isbased on ideas of market economics and globalcompetitiveness. Relationships within schools provide clear examples of Foucault'sconcept of power/knowledge in action. The definitions ofknowledge and, in particular, of legitimate knowledge,structure the power relations in the school and in theeducation system more broadly. The mutuality of powerrelations is also illustrated, however, and even the mostmarginalised students can be in the position of exercisingpower by resisting school, while teachers can experiencethemselves as powerless in the face of such resistance. Thepower of students in these circumstances, however, appearsto lack agency and the concept of capital appears moreuseful in explaining the persistence of inequality. Theidea of identity work would seem to be a promising one forthe analysis of teacher/student relationships vis-à- viscurriculum and it is suggested in this paper that the mostmarginalised students have a very limited range of identitypositions open to them, structured by individual habitus andmediated by asymmetries of power.The paper suggests that a curricular response to earlyschool leaving needs to address the issues mentioned above,such as the ways in which curricula are defined and variousknowledges are valued, the ways in which both teachers andstudents can be empowered and the ways in which thediscourse of care can be integrated into the curriculum.