Handbook for Doctoral Students in Education/Theories everyone should know

Why theories?

There are two reasons to know theories from adjacent social sciences and humanities:

1. You need them to build your conceptual framework and to generate a good hypothesis. There is no way to look at your subject from nowhere. You have to use a particular theoretic perspective and a particular theoretical language to position your research.
2. You need to know theories so you look cool at parties. But seriously, you need to understand the language of social sciences and humanities in order to understand other people's work. This is a necessary part of socialization into the research community.

Anthropology

• Bronislaw Malinowski and Kula trade
• Clifford Geertz "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight"
• Margaret Mead, Growing up in Samoa