Using Social Theory in Educational Research is organised to help practising educators and novice researchers who have little familiarity with social theory to: be introduced to major schools of social theory, their basic concepts, and their general applicability to educational issues develop an understanding of and appreciation for its potential to improve their own practice gain practical insight into how theory can function as a warrant, or support, for data interpretation through the use of multiple practical examples, learn how to integrate theory into their own work more effectively Selected Contents: 1. Getting Theoretical 2. An Illustrated Tour of How Theory Works (and Doesn’t Work) in Educational Research 3. Framing Research Theoretically, Part One: Planning and Data Collection 4. Framing Research Theoretically 5.When Research Meets Research

This book introduces the major schools of social theory, their basic concepts, and their general applicability to educational issues.

Traditionally, teacher education research theory and practice have had a technical-rational focus on productions of knowledge, skills, performance and accountability. Such a focus serves to (re)produce current educational systems instead of noticing and critiquing the wider modes of domination that permeate schools and school systems. In Social Theory for Teacher Education Research, Kathleen Nolan, Jennifer Tupper and the contributors make arguments for drawing on social theories to inform research in teacher education - research that moves the agenda beyond technical-rational concerns toward building a critically reflexive stance for noticing and unpacking the socio-political contexts of schooling.

Social Theory and Health Education brings together health education scholarship with a diverse range of social theories to demonstrate the value and impact of their application to associated health and education contexts. For the first time, this book draws together cutting-edge research that demonstrates the productive and impactful ways social theory can be applied to the diversity of research in this field. Topics covered include digital health, health education in sexuality, gender and health, food and nutrition, mental health and wellbeing, environment, and alcohol and drug use. In exploring these topics, each author utilises different theorists and concepts to compellingly demonstrate their application to a range of health education research contexts. This collection provides examples for both students, early career and established scholars that showcase ways that social theory can be utilised in empirical and theoretical research. The collection also highlights how health education scholarship can be enhanced by engaging with social theory. It also explores the viability of various theories for work in this field, and their potential to generate new approaches for research.

This book summarizes and critiques theories of social and cultural reproduction as they relate to sociology of education.

Most empirical researchers avoid the use of theory in their studies, providing data but little or no social explanation. Theoreticians, on the other hand, rarely test their ideas with empirical projects. As this groundbreaking volume makes clear, however, neither data nor theory alone is adequate to the task of social explanation—rather they form and inform each other as the inquiry process unfolds. Theory and Educational Research bridges the age-old theory/research divide by demonstrating how researchers can use critical social theory to determine appropriate empirical research strategies, and extend the analytical, critical – and sometimes emancipatory – power of data gathering and interpretation. Each chapter models a theoretically informed empiricism that places the data research yields in constant conversation with theoretical arsenals of powerful concepts. Personal reflections following each chapter chronicle the contributors’ trajectories of struggle and triumph utilizing theory and its powers in research. In the end this rich collection teaches education scholars how to deliberately engage with critical social theory in research to produce work that is simultaneously theoretically inspired, politically engaged, and empirically evocative.

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.