Youth Agency and Conceptualizations of Menstruation in English Education Policy 1928-2020

The menstruation stories of young people have been part of research that draws attention to youth experiences of menstrual stigma. Young people’s menstruation stories are not, however, part of education policies in England that the Government says are crucial to addressing menstrual stigma. Relationships, Sex and Health Education (DfE 2019) and the free period products policy (DfE 2020) focus on teachers instructing pupils about menstruation and providing them with products. This paper considers what young people’s menstruation stories do and what they could do as part of such initiatives. Drawing on the Deleuze-Guattarian (1988) notion of the assemblage, it analyses the menstruation stories of 21 young people aged 15 years old. It suggests that such young people’s stories contributed to, but also helped to disrupt, three types of menstruation narrative (or narrative-assemblage): the gender division narrative-assemblage; the personal struggle narrative-assemblage and the spectator narrative-assemblage. The paper then considers what such an analysis implies about possibilities for reforming menstruation education policy and practice. To do so, it draws on Karen Barad’s (2007) practice of diffractive reading and reads young people’s stories though English education policy to present proposals for reforming menstruation education.