The Formation of School Subjects: The Struggle for Creating an American Institution

Originally published in 1987. This volume focuses upon the emergence of the subject-matter of the American school. This provides entrance to looking at the interplay between social, cultural, economic and professional interests that give form to contemporary school practices. The historical detail enables understanding of how school knowledge is shaped and fashioned by issues of structural continuity and social transformation.

This selection of chapters looks at how practices have been shaped by the struggles to define the American school curriculum in different subjects. The authors bring out how particular social values are made into ideologies; and examine the past to enable consideration of the possibilities for further development.

Thomas S. Popkewitz (born August 16, 1940) is a curriculum theorist and professor from the United States of America, on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education. His studies are concerned with the knowledge or systems of reason that govern educational policy and research related to pedagogy and teacher education. His research includes histories of the present, ethnographic and comparative studies of national educational reforms in Asia, Europe, Latin America, Southern Africa, and the US.