Yana Manyukhina is research associate at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (0–11 years). Her area of expertise cuts across the sociology of identity, the sociology of morality, the philosophy of critical realism, and qualitative methodologies. Yana’s work to date contributes to unlocking the potential of critical realism to advance understanding of the real causes of social processes and phenomena. Her first book, published in the Routledge Critical Realism Series, is a critical realist account of ethical consumption, relating the underlying processes of personal change to the wider social contexts. She is now exploring the potential of critical realism to provide a new level of sensitivity in explaining educational processes and outcomes.