Sociology of education is caught in a dilemma. The study of education and society that unfolded through the twentieth century produced educational vocabularies that spoke into education policy and practice about inequality and social justice. Now that sociologically informed educational discourse is marginalised by individualistic economic-psychological vocabularies that read inequality as individual deficits and aspirations. The question is, how can sociology of education speak into contemporary educational knowledge and construct vocabularies that re-open dialogue about social justice? In this article, the concept of "knowledge space" is used to understand the situated enactment of sociological practice that disciplines sociological knowledge about education. A mobile methodology is used to report on three knowledge spaces that locate sociological practice and frame sociological knowledge. The article argues that global transitions have re-scaled and re-ordered the relation between the sovereign and governmental spatial powers that previously centred education. These shifts trouble education and its perceived applications, and also divide national from supra-national sociologies of education. Reconciling these sociologies requires studies of intersecting spaces, scales and the mobilities that fabricate educations and societies. It demands explicit attention to methodological choices, but also offers spaces of possibilities for renewing sociology of education as a powerful discourse.