Mark Murphy is Reader in Education and Public Policy at the University of Glasgow, UK.

Part I: Introduction

1. Social theory and education research: An introduction (Mark Murphy)
2. Social theory and methodology in education research: From conceptualisation to operationalisation (Mark Murphy and Cristina Costa)

Part II: Foucault

3. Foucault and his acolytes: Discourse, power and ethics (Julie Allan)
4. Retooling school surveillance research: Foucault and (post)panopticism (Andrew Hope)
5. Using Foucault to examine issues of girls' education in a religiously driven postcolonial-security state (Ali Sameer)

Part III: Habermas

6. Jürgen Habermas: Education's increasingly recognized hero (Terence Lovat)
7. Between the state and the street: Habermas and education governance (Mark Murphy)
8. Applying Habermas' theory of communicative action in an analysis of recognition of prior learning (Fredrik Sandberg)

Part IV: Bourdieu

9. Bourdieu and educational research: Thinking tools, relational thinking, beyond epistemological innocence (Shaun Rawolle and Bob Lingard)
10. Research in Christian Academies: Perspectives from Bourdieu(Elizabeth Green)
11. Bourdieu applied: Exploring perceived parental influence on adolescent students' educational choices for studies in higher education (Irene Kleanthous)

Part V: Derrida

12. Derrida and educational research: An introduction (Jones Irwin)
13. 'Derrida applied': Derrida meets Dracula in the geography classroom (Christine Winter)
14. Engaging with student teachers on reflective writing: Reclaiming writing (Duncan Mercieca)