This paper contributes to a continuing debate around how the European Educational Research Association (EERA) through its activities is involved in the process of Europeanization and engagement with a European space for education (Plomp, 1991; Novoa and Lawn, 2002; Lawn, 2006; Lawn and Novoa, 2013). The paper will explore how the EERA addresses, critiques, retrieves and promote a specific research environment in the last twenty years. It specifically focuses on how meanings and institutions have been spontaneously formed by individuals within the context of engaging with the European Education Research Association through its meetings, conferences and network activities. The paper will in particular document the interpretative and discursive culture of the Association. Within this framework the paper will address two questions: first, to what extent can the European Educational Research Association be considered as an intellectual home or an alternative academic reality for educational researchers and, second, what motivates these researchers to be active within the Association? The concepts of communities of practice and identity formation were used to provide a framework for investigating and interpreting participants’ perspectives and understanding (Anderson, 1983; Coleman, 1988; Wenger et al, 2002;  Ozga and Allen, 2009;  Bertotti et al, 2012). This framework enabled the different type of connections between researchers to be identified as forms of bonding, bridging and linking capital and the exploration of what such connections enable ECER participants in particular to achieve or construct.

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