Like other Parisian theoretical exports before it, postmodernism has been relatively slow to penetrate the intellectual discourse of Anglo‐American sociology, and even slower to make its mark on the sociology of education. However, in the last five years the ideas of Jean‐François Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard have increasingly preoccupied intellectuals in the USA, and other, predominantly English‐speaking, countries. This paper offers a critique of postmodernism and its use in educational sociology. It analyses the constituent elements of postmodern thought, differentiating between its aesthetic, philosophical and sociological aspects and examines the origins of postmodern philosophy in the work of Nietzsche and the romantic conservatives of the 19th century. For all its insights, postmodernism is seen to be profoundly ahistorical and contradictory. Whilst acknowledging the relevance of some post‐Fordist and Foucauldian theory for educational analysis, it argues that postmodern educational thought misreads global trends in education and unwittingly gives support to free‐market policies which may increase educational inequalities and do little to improve general standards.