Getting Tense about Genealogy

The paper responds to the growing interest in genealogical method as a means of inquiry in education research. The three authors bring together their collective understanding of the nature and purpose of genealogy as a method deriving from the work of Michel Foucault. The authors then indicate how such understandings were applied by each of them to a particular scholarly task. In elaborating the uses and the pitfalls of genealogical approaches by this means, the writers make it clear that there is no blueprint for genealogical use. Rather, working through genealogical methods demands from the researcher a strong grasp of the epistemological and theoretical tensions involved in asking how our present educational practices function as they do

Conflating religious principles with emotional intelligence

From a discourse analysis of promotional materials that include prospectuses, advertisements and school publications, this paper considers the 'value-addedness' of emotional literacy that some schools in Australia purport to offer as they position themselves at the apex of the market of education. Attesting to the importance of obtaining positional advantage, ideas of building self-esteem as emotional intelligence are being conflated with religious principles to produce the 'whole' child with market edge. This paper draws on a recent research study of 'elite' Australian schools and traces discursive shifts that re-form and link formerly 'unpopular' ideas about religion with those of contemporary understandings of spirituality as emotional intelligence. Some schools go further to offer emotional literacy as part of their pedagogy. Questions are raised in the paper about issues of fabrication in performativity-inspired marketing materials that promise to build subjective identities with a spiritual dimension that translates into successful and prosperous schooling outcomes and life chances