"In this book, we see the fruits of Popkewitz’s effort over the past decade to recast educational theory and research around a new set of questions having to do with the social construction of Self and Other. What makes this book particularly compelling is the effort to bring postmodern theory, particularly the work of Michel Foucault, to a concrete case study of reform in education."
—Dennis Carlson, Center for Education and Cultural Studies, Miami University

"Challenging and evocative, Popkewitz pushes us to think beyond the location of meaning in interactions. Rather, the text demonstrates the force of discursive practices in pedagogy, opens up new possibilities for teaching, and enacts the possibilities of postmodern ethnography."
—Beth Graue, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Tom Popkewitz offers a complex, original, and even ‘radical’ critique of schooling and knowledge that employs cutting edge poststructuralist political-social theory and ethnographic research methods in the study of urban and rural education."
—Wendy Kohli, Louisiana State University

"One of the most important books related to ‘diversity’ and school reform to appear in many years."
—Marianne Bloch, University of Wisconsin-Madison

In Struggling for the Soul, author Thomas Popkewitz tackles the persistent concern about unequal educational opportunities in the United States. He extends the theory of social epistemology argued in A Political Sociology of Educational Reform through an ethnographic study of a national reform program that recruited teacher interns for urban and rural schools throughout the U.S.