This article addresses the issue of the disciplinary status of Educational Studies, which both in the theoretical discourse and in the practice of this area is far from unambiguous. The issue is relevant not only for theoretical reasons but also for practical and social ones. This is because the status of Educational Studies, by having a decisive impact on the very understanding and nature of studies in education, at least in part may impact changes in educational practice. Two main models of Educational Studies can be differentiated (the Anglo-American model and the Continental model), with additional variation within these models. Among the terms most commonly used in discussion of the disciplinary status of Educational Studies, frequent mention is made of the autonomy that exists in various versions (as in the Continental model) and of interdisciplinarity (as in the Anglo-American model). This article proposes a new way of understanding this status, which I call the autonomy of Educational Studies as a second-level discipline, which includes aspects of both of the previously mentioned models (with a predominance of the Continental model), yet also adds certain modifications (among other things concerning the understanding of disciplinarity). In the course of my argumentation, I will conduct a comparative analysis of both traditions, and subsequently justify the proposed thesis (making reference both to notional questions and pragmatic/scientific questions), and finally briefly indicate potential problems which may be generated by this model.