Globalisation, education and policy research

Abstract

When we enter into the process of researching education, or even before we start researching phenomena in education, we carry into our examination a number of assumptions. These assumptions are so deeply ingrained in our way of thinking and our underlying philosophy or epistemology that we find it difficult to examine them critically. In this chapter I wish to look at the range of conceptual and theoretical tools which we apply when developing a study in education. More particularly what I want to examine is a range of conceptual tools which are completely lacking or missing from those that we regularly deploy.