My research question engages with the issue of how a trajectory of research capacity emerges from the biographies of academically productive academics. In Britain and other European countries concern has been expressed about the quality and use-value of Education Research undertaken in university departments of education. In tandem with that concern a parallel anxiety exists about how to effectively build research capacity in Education Research which has been said to be comparatively weak as a social science compared with sociology and social anthropology. To investigate this set of connected issues I have utilised theories of social practice including those of Lave and Wenger, and also Bourdieu. In addition to characterise and identify types of research capacity and career trajectories I involve critical incident analysis the results of which I theorise in relation to the ideal type notion of Max Weber.

Tripp, D. (1994) Teachers’ lives, critical incidents, and professional practice, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 7, No. 1: 65-76. Weber, M. (1949 (1904). The Methodology of the Social Sciences, trans. E.A. Shils & H.A. Finch, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Woolsey, L. K. (1986) The critical incident technique: An innovative qualitative method of research, Canadian Journal of Counseling, 20: 242-254. Lave, J., and E. Wenger. 1991. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P., and L.J.D. Wacquant, 1992. An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.