This part locates the research enterprise in several contexts. It commences with positivist and scientific contexts of research and then proceeds to show the strengths and weaknesses of such traditions for educational research.
As an alternative paradigm, the cluster of approaches that can loosely be termed interpretive, naturalistic, phenomenological, interactionist and ethnographic are brought together and their strengths and weaknesses for educational research are examined. The rise of critical theory as a paradigm in which educational research is conducted has been spectacular and its implications for the research undertaking are addressed in several ways here, resonating with curriculum research and feminist research (this too has been expanded and updated).