Mark Murphy (ed.) Social Theory and Education Research. Understanding Foucault, Habermas, Bourdieu and Derrida, Routledge, 2nd edition, 2022
Book Description
Social Theory and Education Research is an advanced and accessible text that illustrates the diverse ways in which social theories can be applied to educational research methodologies. It provides in-depth overviews of the various theories by well-known and much-debated thinkers – Michel Foucault, Jürgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Derrida – and their applications in educational research.
Updated throughout and with new extended introductions to each theorist and a new chapter on the application of socio-theoretical concepts in education research methodologies and the how-to of research practice, this second edition assists education practitioners and researchers in their acquisition and application of social theory. This book contextualizes the various theories within the broader context of social philosophy and the historical development of different forms of thought.
Social Theory and Education Research will be incredibly useful to postgraduate students and early career researchers who wish to develop their capacity to engage with these debates at an advanced level. It will also prove of great interest to anyone involved in education policy and theory.
Table of Contents
Part I: Introduction
Social theory and education research: An introduction (Mark Murphy)
Social theory and methodology in education research: From conceptualisation to operationalisation (Mark Murphy and Cristina Costa)
Part II: Foucault
Foucault and his acolytes: Discourse, power and ethics (Julie Allan)
Retooling school surveillance research: Foucault and (post)panopticism (Andrew Hope)
Using Foucault to examine issues of girls’ education in a religiously driven postcolonial-security state (Ali Sameer)
Part III: Habermas
Jürgen Habermas: Education’s increasingly recognized hero (Terence Lovat)
Between the state and the street: Habermas and education governance (Mark Murphy)
Applying Habermas’ theory of communicative action in an analysis of recognition of prior learning (Fredrik Sandberg)
Part IV: Bourdieu
Bourdieu and educational research: Thinking tools, relational thinking, beyond epistemological innocence (Shaun Rawolle and Bob Lingard)
Research in Christian Academies: Perspectives from Bourdieu (Elizabeth Green)
Bourdieu applied: Exploring perceived parental influence on adolescent students’ educational choices for studies in higher education (Irene Kleanthous)
Part V: Derrida
Derrida and educational research: An introduction (Jones Irwin)
‘Derrida applied’: Derrida meets Dracula in the geography classroom (Christine Winter)
Engaging with student teachers on reflective writing: Reclaiming writing (Duncan Mercieca)
Foucault News 