Educational Alternatives, Volume 15, 2017

Abstract: The need for me to undertake a genealogy of education policy arose from my experience as a senior lecturer in social work teaching a diverse cohort of students. I intended to understand how the origins of where we were from and how I had been taught, affected our interactions with each other. I also wanted to teach using a relationship based approach. This involved using ‘the self’ as a teaching tool, therefore it was important to understand what had shaped my ‘self’. Foucault’s genealogy of education policy offered a method of self-study in understanding myself as an educator. Being part of the first generation of migrant children from the Caribbean to be educated in England, I was aware education policies at that time had espoused assimilation into British society. The genealogy was intended to help me identify the complexity of these policies and how they affected my ‘self’, identity and teaching.