The three articles that make up this issue on theory in educational history are a welcome engagement with the challenges raised by poststructuralism and other theoretical developments. They contribute to what should be an ongoing conversation about the nature of the enterprise of writing the history of education. The three articles in the special…

Questions why historians of education have been so reluctant to link their work more firmly to social history. As partial answers, suggests that one reason is their discomfort with current models of the development of modern society and the fact that most historians of education pursue their work with an institutional focus rather than a social…