Genealogies of Governmentality: Producing and Managing Young Children and Their Education

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Elsa

Genealogies of governmentality, described as histories of the present, open critical space to challenge what seems necessary to everyday life. The paper argues that this approach helps analyze early childhood education by tracing how conduct is conducted through complex, contradictory adult discourses. It especially examines preschool provision in Queensland government schools, emphasizing the governance of childhood through politics, motherhood, citizenship, labor, and economic rationalities.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages16

Reading Time40 min

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Abstract

Genealogies of Governmentality

Genealogical approach to political and historical contingencies

Genealogies of Governmentality: Producing and Managing Young Children and Their Education Jo Ailwood Charles Sturt University Abstract Genealogies, or histories of the present, create critical spaces to remind us of the nonnecessity of that which we consider necessary to our lives (Burchell 1993) . Further, genealogies of governmentality attempt to create this space with a focus on how conduct is conducted. In this paper I suggest that genealogies of governmentality are one way to create critical analyses of the education of young children . Sociologies of childhood consider childhood to be a relational concept, functioning in relation to adulthood. I argue that genealogies are one way to illuminate these relationships, in particular pointing towards the ways in which the education of young children is deeply embedded in a range of complex and contradictory ‘adult’ discourses and knowledges, including those of motherhood, politics, worker, citizen and the economy. To illustrate this I provide an analysis of the provision of preschool education in Queensland’s government schools. [T]he idea that human sciences like educational studies stand outside or above the political agenda of the management of the population or somehow have a neutral status embodied in a free-floating progressive rationalism are dangerous and debilitating conceits. (Ball 1998, p. 76) [T]here is a complex interplay between society and its institutions forchildren which … casts doubt over the redemptive hopes invested by politicians and policy makers in children’s services. If we know how to read them, public provisions for children offer narratives about their society, its values and dominant understandings. (Moss and Petrie 2002, p. 171) The Australian Educational Researcher, Volume 31, Number 3, December 2004 •19 JO AILWOOD Nicolas Rose has stated that ‘childhood is the most intensely governed sector of personal existence’(1999a, p. 123) . Rose originally made this comment in the 1980s, referring to understandings of childhood in the twentieth century to that point. That the shape and intensity of this governing is shifting, in concert with shifting modes for the governing of adults, is the central focus of my research. The two opening quotations above, from different studies and within different contexts, reflect two key ideas I consider within the theoretical and analytical framework provided by governmentality. The first of these is centred on the need to engage with political agendas and the management of the population as a powerful site for thinking about early childhood education and the construction and regulation of young children. The second key idea maintains that such an engagement has the potential to produce critical narratives of politics, society and the institutions adults create and regulate for young children. Childhood may be the most heavily governed sector of existence; however, it is not often viewed as such in studies of early childhood education or of the institutional frameworks invented for childhood. Rather, dominant amongst studies of childhood has been a concern for maintaining childhood as natural and innocent. Following Rose (1999b), and before him Foucault, I aim to present a critical and diagnostic approach to the analysis of preschool education that considers preschool education and understandings of young children as socially, culturally, politically and historically constructed. This approach offers a way to consider how early childhood education has been thought about, taking into account understandings of childhood, teacherhood and motherhood. It also entails an analysis of the tactics and strategies that have been invented to regulate and manage all who inhabit early childhood settings. Moss and Petrie (2002), in the quotation that opens this paper, point out that analyses of the institutions adults create for young children can provide revealing social narratives. Hultqvist (1998, p. 96) has

FAQs

What is the purpose of genealogies of governmentality in this paper?

They create critical space by treating present-day necessities as non-inevitable. The paper uses this to support critical analysis of early childhood education.

How does the paper connect early childhood education with adult discourses?

It argues that schooling for young children is embedded in complex and contradictory adult discourses and knowledges such as motherhood, politics, worker/citizen roles, and the economy.

What case does the paper use to illustrate its argument?

It provides an analysis of the provision of preschool education in Queensland’s government schools.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Elsa