In this paper, based on an invited keynote given at the 2022 Colloquium of the Society for Educational Studies, I explore the question of the integrity of educational studies. I ask is whether educational studies in their current configuration are able to offer resistance to the instrumentalisation of education and the push towards empirical research that is only interested in finding out what works, but is unable to engage with this question in a properly educational way. Through a reconstruction of the history of educational studies in the English-speaking world, I show how educational studies are predominantly configured as an 'applied field'. The problem with this configuration is that educational studies lack the resources for generating educational questions about and an educational perspective on education. I show why this is a problem, also in relation to ongoing misunderstandings and misrepresentations of education. In the final part of the paper I outline two approaches, one focusing on educational concepts and one highlighting the unique and distinctive form of education, that may help to build a stronger identity for educational studies. I see this as a major challenge for the future of educational studies in the English-speaking world.