The ‘C’ word in educational research: an appreciative response

Abstract

Honored by the invitation to read and comment on the papers in this special edition, this final contribution is an appreciation of critical studies in education. This ‘C’ word is dangerous in a neo‐liberal world, but as the authors show there is much intellectually practical work that researchers and theorizers are doing. I take my starting point from the exclusion of children from the decision‐making processes about their lives and education, and draw on the research directions and arguments in the papers to examine how we might think ourselves out of the situation. I argue for a rehabilitation of active dependency as a socially critical approach to how we live together, and consequently we need to be comfortable with strangers and strangeness as an antidote to vision and mission which not only fabricates social practice but also deludes us into social blandness.

Keywords:

• childhood and happiness
• critical research in education
• intellectual work
• public sector education

Acknowledgement

The thinking undertaken for this paper was supported by the ESRC Knowledge Production in Educational Leadership Project (RES‐000‐23‐1192).