This thesis is about the Disadvantaged Schools Program of the Schools Commission. It operates on two levels: the general rationale and objectives of the program; and a case study of its implementation in a Western Australian high school. The program was set up primarily as an attempt to improve the schooling, and hence the life chances, of disadvantaged children. The research was undertaken on the assumption that the most obvious connection between schooling and life chances in Australian society concerns the gaining of educational credentials needed for access to jobs and further education. Therefore improving the life chances of disadvantaged children through schooling must amount primarily to helping them gain those credentials. The central question addressed in this research is whether the DSP as implemented in that school achieved this goal. The central conclusion is that the program activities over the period did not lead to improved scholastic attainment, and, further, that they were not designed to do so. Two related explanations are offered for this. The first is a lack of clear directions in the guidelines provided by the Schools Commission. The second concerns the freedom given to the staff, under the Commission's implementation policy, to determine the direction of the school's goals. The staff were found to have used this freedom to modify the school's curriculum in ways that tended to reduce students' opportunities to gain educational credentials. This was related to generally held beliefs about the students' limited capacity to gain those credentials.