The article identifies and discusses three stages in the critical policy methodology used in the sociology of education. These are: firstly, employing a political economy theoretical framework that identifies causal links between global forces and local developments; secondly, analysing educational policy within that theoretically conceptualised context; and thirdly, undertaking empirical studies to examine educational phenomena located within the larger context of political and economic forces and policies. The integrated nature of the three stages of the methodology is illustrated using the example of curriculum change in New Zealand and the effects on the subject of history. The example's first and second stages are discussed in some length in order to demonstrate the importance of theorising to critical analysis. Therefore the purpose of the example is to show the theoretically embedded nature of critical sociological methodology. In the example, the theoretical framework establishes the conceptual basis for the curriculum analysis. In turn this analysis can be applied to empirical studies of the practice of policy in order to explain those practices.