This collection discusses and illustrates how educational research is affected by the economic, institutional and physical contingencies of its time, and in our time even increasingly is driven by them. It is argued that the antidote to this is, however, not to aspire to 'thought itself', but instead to do justice to its own rootedness in the 'material', including textuality. From an historical point of view such an innovative approach can itself revamp the material scholarly culture and the way it is represented.

1. On the tangible material culture of child-rearing, education, and educational research.- Paul Smeyers & Marc Depaepe.- 2. Valorising the cultural heritage of the school desk through historical research; Marc Depaepe, Frank Simon & Pieter Verstraete.- 3. Mirrors of reality? Material culture and the significance of images for research into long-term educational processes; Jeroen J.H. Dekker.- 4. Visual, literary and numerical perspectives on education: materiality, presence and interpretation; Karin Priem.- 5. Education and the 'new totalitarianism': How standards for reporting on empirical studies of education limit the scope of academic research and communication; Sophie Ward.- 6. Materials that shape researchers; Naomi Hodgson.- 7. The Tractarian template in the representation of educational research: Can we ever depart from the picture of logical empiricism?; Paul Smeyers.- 8. The ethics of materiality: Some insights from non-representational theory for educational research; Lynn Fendler.- 9. Mud and hair: an essay on the conditions of educational research; Richard Smith.- 10. Material and aesthetic tensions within arts-based educational research: Drawing woodpaths; Maureen K. Michael & Ian Munday.- 11. Olympification versus aesthetization: The appeal of mathematics outside the classroom; Kathleen Coessens, Karen François & Jean Paul Van Bendegem.- 12. Signs of the times: Iconography of a new education; Paul Standish.- 13. The paradigmatic differences between name/date and footnote styles of citation; Nick Burbules.- 14. Conversation - in the construction and representation of research; David Bridges.- 15. About the Authors.- Author Index - Subject Index.