This theme issue of the serial "Educational Foundations" contains five articles devoted to the topic of "Alternative Conceptualizations" of the foundations of education. In "The Concept of Place in the New Sociology of Education," Paul Theobald examines the notion of place in educational theory and practice. Janice Jipson and Nicholas Paley, in "Fiction as Curricular Text," studied six professors who utilize fiction as text while teaching education courses. The findings suggest that fiction in education courses may give abstract concepts memorable concreteness, aquaint students with multiple ways of knowing, and elicit student self-interrogations concerning large life questions. In "Knowledge, Practice, and Judgment," Hugh G. Petrie analyzes the elements of teachers' knowledge and practice through a Deweyian framework and develops a model of knowledge in action that is embodied in professional judgment. In the fourth article, "The Illusion of Education Reform: The Educational System and At-Risk Students," Clark Robenstine examines the detrimental effects contemporary educational reform proposals may have on at-risk students. The final article, Ken Kempner's "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing: Positivists Masquerading as Phenomenologists?," analyzes educational philosophy and concludes that many researchers fall between positivists and phenomenologists. (Author/CK)