School is a complex environment, in which students develop and maintain interpersonal relationships and participate in daily social interactions, whilst continuously engaging in academic activities and learning. The current systematic review provides a configurative overview of the empirical research which explores the association between social goals and academically oriented variables in elementary, middle, and high school. Web of Science, Scopus, and PsychINFO were searched for articles, with thematically relevant keywords. A screening of the articles ensued according to the eligibility criteria. We report a thematic synthesis of 27 articles published between 1993 and 2019. We identified 12 social goals, and categorised these into thematically similar groups, based on their orientation towards friendship, status, support, conformity, and competence. Our synthesis confirms that the social goal types have different associations with academic variables, which included academic achievement, school engagement and effort, as well as learning strategies. The significance of these findings are discussed, with an emphasis on the uniqueness of social goals and the need for clarity, structuring, and theoretical embedment of the construct. Social goals provide a novel motivational perspective, complementing and expanding previous achievement and social theories within the field.