Identification with academics is the extent to which an individual bases his or her self-esteem on outcomes in the academic domain. Theory suggests that students who are highly identified with academics should be more motivated to succeed in a domain, and thus more likely to experience desirable academic outcomes and avoid undesirable outcomes, such as dropping out of school or obtaining poor grades. Two studies examined the validity of this hypothesis. In the first study, data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 show that 2 years prior to dropping out of school, substantial differences in identification are present between those who drop out and those who do not. Study 2, which involved the entire entering ninth-grade class of a high school, showed that identification with academics is related to psychological variables such as holding learning goals, intrinsic valuing of academics, self-regulation, holding a mastery orientation, and amount of processing course material receives. Identification with academics also prospectively predicts future academic outcomes such as grades, behavioral referrals, and absenteeism. (Contains 17 references.) (Author/SLD)