This special issue brings together current work in education research that engages with a pragmatic, yet critical theoretical tradition sprung from the French context during the 1980s. Based on a particular understanding of existence, perception, reality and the dynamics of social life, this theoretical tradition has continuously been developed over the past four decades in a variety of fields, such as law, economic studies, political sciences, education research and sociology. Despite its rich history, this approach has until recently only garnered limited attention from English-speaking research communities. Consequently, our aim is to introduce the approach to the European Education Research Journal readership and demonstrate the tradition's richness and range of use for education research. By showing the many ways in which this perspective can be utilised in education research, we hope to inspire more scholars who publish in English-speaking contexts to engage with us and explore what insights this 'novel' perspective can bring to our research field. In this editorial, we briefly explain the perspective's base assumptions and key features, discuss the potential relevance of this approach for education research, and introduce the articles of the special issue. First, however, we want to address the issue of naming.