Genealogical Research

Genealogical research is a critical and postmodern approach to historical inquiry. In curriculum studies, the term genealogy is sometimes used to mean the same thing as history. At the same time, genealogical research also has a technical meaning that is derived from Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality (Zur Genealogie der Moral) and from Michel Foucault's “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” In this more specific definition, genealogical research resembles archaeological research, but genealogy adds to archaeology an analytical focus on subjectivity. Genealogical research contributes to curriculum studies an approach to creative inquiry that is poised to critique an array of modern and structural assumptions about history and subjectivity.

Genealogical research differs from traditional history across five dimensions: It is cross-sectional, local, nonlinear, critical, and focused on subjectivity.