Abstract

Reform movements in education seem to come and go as regularly as German trains. Each new wave of "change" and the discourse that accompanies it promises to fix "the problem" through new technique or by including previously marginalised groups. In Struggling for the Soul, Tom Popkewitz argues that contemporary schooling of "marginal" children has not changed significantly in a century and a half. The struggle he identifies is an ongoing moral crusade for the normalization of children and the shaping of subjectivities according to a fluid, always current roster of "normal" characteristics. Contexts change, but the essential strategies of power and subject formation remain remarkably resilient though shifting political winds. I hesitate to use the term "marginal" because in Popkewitz's poststructural analysis the most important feature of any discourse about populations is precisely to be found in which groups get set apart partly through the use of defining language. I agree that this is indeed the case.

How to Cite:

Corbett, M., (2000) “Book Review: Struggling for the Soul: The Politics of Schooling and the Construction of the Teacher”, Journal of Research in Rural Education 16(2), 141–145.

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