Mark Murphy

"International Perspectives on Theorizing Aspirations offers new insights and guidance for those looking to use Bourdieu's tools in an educational context, with a focus on how the tools can be applied to issues of aspiration. Written by contributors from the UK, USA, Australia, Nigeria, Jamaica and Spain, the book explores how Bourdieu's tools have been applied in recent cutting-edge educational research on a range of topics, including widening participation, migration, ethnicity and class. The contributors consider how aspirations are theorized in sociology, as well as exploring the structure/agency debates, before recapitulating Bourdieu's tools and their applicability in educational contexts. A key question running through the chapters is: how does social theory shape research? Including recommended readings, this is essential reading for anyone looking to use Bourdieu in their research and for those studying aspiration in an educational research setting."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

‡a"This collection brings together for the first time a set of researchers whose research methodologies centre on Bourdieu's concept of habitus. Full of insight and innovation, the book is an essential read for anyone wanting to know more about approaches to social theory and its application in research. One of its core objectives is to assist social researchers in their capacity to harness the potential of habitus as a methodological tool, thereby helping to bridge the often troublesome dichotomy between theory and method in the social sciences. It also provides a useful and practical resource on how effectively to apply the concept of habitus to scholarship/research, and can easily be used as a reference book in postgraduate programmes."--Publisher's website.

"The study of 'education governance' is a significant area of research in the twenty-first century concerned with the changing organisation of education systems, relations and processes against the background of wider political and economic developments occurring nationally and globally. In Education Governance and Social Theory these important issues are critically examined through a range of innovative theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches to assist in guiding those interested in better understanding and engaging with education governance as an object of critical inquiry and a tool or method of research. With contributions from an international line-up of academics, the book judiciously combines theory and methodologies with case study material taken from diverse geo-political settings to help frame and enrich our understanding of education governance. This is a theoretically and empirically rich resource for those who wish to research education governance and its multifarious operations, conditions and effects, but are not sure how to do so. It will therefore appeal to readers who have a strong interest in the practical application of social theory to making sense of the complex changes underway in education across the globe."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

"Bringing together an international group of scholars who shine a theoretical light on the politics of academic life and higher education, the book explores three key areas - institutional governance, academic work and student experience through a theoretical lens, using the ideas of Michel Foucault, Barbara Adams, Margaret Archer, Pierre Bourdieu, Norbert Elias and Donna Haraway, among others. Global case studies draw on a wide range of research approaches, and each chapter includes a set of critical reflections on how social theory and research methodology can work in tandem"--

"Informed by Deleuze and Guattari's concepts of the assemblage and the wound-event, this book examines the complexity of educator subjectivity and social change within the higher education context in South Africa. The authors use arts-based methods to explore educators' experiences of personal and professional challenges in a rapidly changing context. The method is informed by critical, narrative and arts-based research traditions that extend into post-qualitative, autobiographical, performative and collaborative methods of inquiry. The book plays with the conflation of theory and methodology, to think about educator subjectivity as fluid and responsive to changing contexts. By understanding educator subjectivity as multiple and emergent rather than centered and fixed, the authors open new research avenues to explore themes of transformation, decolonisation and social change"--