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Democracy and Education is a 1916 book in which the American philosopher John Dewey describes a philosophy of education that connects the role of education in fulfilling the conditions for a democratic society. He emphasizes an education in which children think scientifically, deliberatively, and openly in considering new experiences so as to best prepare themselves for future growth. Accordingly, Dewey's idea of a democratic society is one in which there is free interaction between groups and members within a group.

Dewey synthesized and clarified his thoughts on education from the past several decades to create the 1916 volume. Reviews were mostly positive and acknowledged Dewey's existing stature in the field and his unique approach towards building a philosophy of education through rationale rather than through rote terminology. Critics praised his theoretical passages, especially those on democracy. The book's wide translation has served as Dewey's main introduction to nations around the world, who have in turn, appropriated parts of Dewey's message towards their own ideologies of education.

Overview edit

 
John Dewey, the author

Democracy and Education is presented in two parts. The first seven chapters lay the theoretical groundwork for the final 19 chapters, which address major concepts in education such as aims, method, teaching, and subject matter.[1] The purposes of the book are (1) to find and show the necessary conditions for a democratic society, and (2) to show how education can fulfill those conditions. Dewey sets out to cover methods of public education and theories of "knowing and moral" development. His philosophy connects the growth of democracy to the scientific method, biological evolution, and industrialization. It extrapolates those cultural changes to changes in "subject matter and method of education".[2] Dewey begins by discussing how society uses education as a means of "social control". As Robert Westbrook writes, "social control" implied the role of adults in shaping children but not the modern connotations of "indoctrination" or overt "manipulation". Dewey wrote that "education as a social process" relies on a defined type of society that education seeks to create, which is his segue into the traits that would be necessary to educate into a democratic society.[3]

The first section of the book, its first six chapters, explores the nature of education without mention of its integration with democracy. Consistent with his previous writings, Dewey asserts that education occurs by doing, through activity. He adds that its facilitators are obliged to provide subject matter and a learning environment that (1) permit the free exercise of instinct while (2) aligning the activity's aims with a societal purpose. He adopts democracy as a standard, but considers its capacity for associated living paramount to its governance functions.[4] Dewey writes that a democratic society provides for all to participate equally, and amends its institutions to accommodate societal life. A democratic society, he writes, must provide for reciprocal communication between societal groups and individuals within each group. Thus the subordination of groups to each other runs anathema to the purpose of democratic association. Accordingly, the aim of education cannot be externally imposed, but pupils must participate in the actions of the group. Dewey is also opposed to dualisms, such as the divorce of intellectual activities from those that involve the physical body.[5]

Dewey's philosophy is based on several ideas: "The biological continuity of human impulses and instincts with natural energies; the dependence of the growth of mind upon participation in conjoint activities having a common purpose; the influence of the physical environment through the uses made of it in the social medium; the necessity of utilization of individual variations in desire and thinking for a progressively developing society; the essential unity of method and subject matter; the intrinsic continuity of ends and means; the recognition of mind as thinking which perceives and tests the meanings of behavior".[6] Knowledge, according to Dewey, is the degree to which a person is predisposed by habit to adapt the environment to their needs and vice versa.[7] Teachers, then, should aim to have children learn to think scientifically, though refining and reflection.[8] Dewey believed that scientific thinking led to civic virtues of free inquiry, free communication, and tolerance of other opinions, such that scientific thinkers would be more apt to apply deliberative reason when making moral value judgments.[9]

In chapter seven, Dewey delineates two criteria for measuring the worth of a society: the degree to which members of a group all share its interests, and degree to which the group interacts with other groups.[10] Dewey's conception of the society consists of free individuals engaged in cooperative work. The beliefs, emotions, and knowledge of the old cannot be directly transferred, as "each individual must determine his own beliefs, feel his own emotions, and generate his own knowledge". The society can shape the young's acquisition of these traits by providing a customized environment: the school.[11] The school has three functions: (1) to simplify the traits wished to distill in the young, (2) to purify existing societal traits, and (3) to balance the environment with influences not otherwise provided in the readymade environment.[12]

Publication edit

Following a souring of relationships with the president of the University of Chicago in 1904, Dewey left the university and the laboratory school—the main application of his philosophy—for Columbia University in New York City.[13] Dewey was less involved in Columbia's schools, but continued to publish on education. These papers ultimately became his 1916 Democracy and Education.[14] He used the hunt and peck method to type the book.[15] At the time of publication, Dewey was already known as a professor of philosophy and influential thought leader on topics of education, according to reviewers.[16]

Dewey's ideas on education did not change much from the 1890s.[14] While he had alluded to a connection between education and democracy in prior works, the connection is the central focus of Democracy and Education.[16] The book was published within a textbook series.[16]

Reception edit

The 1917 Book Review Digest indicated that Democracy and Education received mostly positive reviews.[17] Reviewers described the simplicity and directness of Dewey's style.[7] While some critics considered his methods successful,[7] and noted his sincerity and thoroughness,[18] others thought the book was not evenly "sound".[17] Reviewers acknowledged Democracy and Education as the culmination of Dewey's preexisting stature[7] and described the book as an instant classic: for one, the most "profound and vitalizing" discussion on the meaning education in modern literature,[7] and for another, in the ranks of Plato and Rousseau.[17]

James Edwin Creighton's 1916 review in The Philosophical Review asserted Democracy & Education to be an exception to the standard, uninteresting education textbook. Creighton wrote that the book's argument was vigorous and new. In particular, Creighton said that Dewey had impressive command of criticism and philosophical principles. Dewey also described educational issues as fundamental rather than dryly pedagogical. Creighton noted that Dewey's ideas did not point to immediate or radical innovations.[19] Even if readers disagreed with Dewey's principles or pragmatism, Creighton wrote, they should agree with Dewey's criticism of dualisms in education, particularly the one between education theory and practice. However, Creighton did see Dewey's principles as descending from pragmatism—"'external' facts or narrowly 'practical' values—rather than from a priori "ready-made philosophy", though Creighton acknowledged Dewey's heavier emphasis on ideals than other pragmatist works.[20] Creighton felt that Dewey adequately convinced him of the necessity of transcending the "naturalistic view of mind" and reproducing "universal meanings".[21]

Ernest Carroll Moore, in The Journal of Philosophy, thought of Democracy and Education as "the reflection of a lifetime".[7] He summarized Dewey's connection between philosophy and education, respectively, as the "reflection upon social ideals" and "the effort to actualize them in human behavior". Accordingly, Dewey had called for a reappraisal of philosophy (and consequently, education) in light of recent societal changes: science, industrial revolution, democracy, which fundamentally altered the circumstances by which a human choose how to live well.[22] Moore added that the point of education was for individuals to learn how to direct their own growth.[23] Moore wrote that Democracy and Education discusses the philosophy of education very differently from standard books on the subject. Instead of proceeding through dry classifications or a priori deductions of an education theory from existing philosophy, Dewey "thinks out the problems of education".[7]

To The Nation's criticism that Dewey's philosophy does not allow for people who choose to live "in the privacy of reflective self-consciousness", Moore retorted that no such people exist, as all people change with their environment and socialization and are not readymade.[22] Art, education, philosophy, politics, religion, and science are the result of people making choices about how to live and would not exist if young instead received the habits of predetermined, unchanging practice from the old.[24] In this way, the panacea of a single right way of living that would result in societal harmony is "a delusion" that ignores the diversity of individual constitutions—a democracy of experience that is more fundamental than government. Moore wrote that Dewey's "ideal ... aspiration of democracy", in which free individuals pursue common purposes, is the corollary to Plato's "ideal state".[11]

Administrative progressives of the era resisted some of Dewey's proposals. A sociologist reviewer of 1918 acknowledged the importance of teaching citizens to think but put paramountcy on training "to revere and to obey".[25]

International reception edit

Translator ideology both influenced and prejudiced multiple translations of Democracy and Education.[26][27] For instance, Spanish educationalist Lorenzo Luzuriaga translated and popularized Dewey's works during his exile in Argentina following the Spanish Civil War.[28] He began with Experience and Education in 1939 and translated several early Dewey works during the nationalist dictatorship before releasing Democracy and Education in 1946 as Juan Perón came to power. The book received six printings in the next 25 years. The popularity of Luzuriaga's translations was aided by increased democratic sentiment amongst teachers, who were incensed by authoritarian education policy and used "democracy" to contrast and embody their opposition to the Perón administration. For the Argentinian teachers, Dewey's focus on democracy and republicanism resonated with their own desire to restore the liberal 1853 constitution and defend public schooling for the poor. The Argentinian teachers, however, did not take up Dewey's points on democratic pluralism, anti-totalitarianism, or anti-authoritarian school cultures. Perónist teachers sought to exclude Dewey from debates over democracy as a "foreign" influence.[29]

Legacy edit

 
A postal stamp commemorating John Dewey

Democracy and Education is widely considered the best expression of Dewey's general philosophy.[15] It began a period of reverence toward Dewey among professional philosophers, lasting through his 70th birthday celebration in 1929.[30]

Reviewers considered the theoretical section of the book to be its most important, particularly chapter seven—the section on democracy.[10] Dewey referred to Democracy and Education as his best summary of his overall philosophy[14][31] and his best overall work on education.[14] Dewey's later works on education were narrower in focus.[31] Dewey biographer Robert Westbrook noted that Democracy and Education lacked an overt "political strategy" for achieving Dewey's proposed "redistribution of power", in which workers were freed through their "direct participation in control". Instead, Dewey relied on "moral exhortation" to achieve democratic politics.[32]

Democracy and Education inspired the Philadelphia physician–chemist and millionaire Albert C. Barnes to seek out Dewey. After attending his classes, Barnes would later fund Dewey's study of the Polish community in Philadelphia.[33] In 1930, their European travel together led to Dewey's Art as Experience.[34]

Sidney Hook wrote that the book remained pertinent to the social problems and schooling trends of the late 1970s (in particular, intelligence testing and the free school movement). He wrote that the text's "continuing significance" relies on future readers' interpretations.[35] Hook considered the book a living classic required for all students of education philosophy, who would each read the problems of their own era in the book, thus proving the book's continual importance.[36] At the book's centennial anniversary, Leonard Waks (Educational Theory) too wrote that Democracy and Education remained a "living classic".[37] While he asserted that many of Dewey's ideas were not novel and were in fact better implemented abroad, Waks found value in Dewey's relation of the school to trends in American culture and philosophy.[38] Waks affirmed Hook's 1976 conclusion that Democracy and Education was a successful critique of Summerhill School and the 1960s free school movement.[36] Waks also used Hook as an example of how Democracy and Education was used to support a researcher's "own potentially biased conclusions".[26] Waks struggled to believe Hook's argument that Dewey would support genetics-based, racial intelligence testing and tracking in the name of free inquiry, especially given the known nature of race as a social construct by 1976.[36] Waks proposed that researchers begin "new, critical translations of Democracy and Education" in light of its former mishandling.[26]

Historian Robert Westbrook wrote that E. D. Hirsch's 1987 Cultural Literacy is part of a lineage of books that blame Dewey for the state of contemporary education. Though Dewey was not neutral or uncritical of content, he did little to specify specific "facts that children should learn". Westbrook wrote that Dewey would be impressed by Hirsch's research on the importance of "common culture", and that Hirsch considered the idea of core curriculum to be democratic towards cultural literacy. Westbrook wrote that Hirsch's Cultural Literacy was a more fitting "companion" to Democracy and Education than the more prominent "attack on American education", Allan Bloom's 1987 The Closing of the American Mind.[39]

References edit

  1. ^ Waks 2007, pp. 28–29.
  2. ^ Creighton 1916, pp. 735–6.
  3. ^ Westbrook 1991, p. 172.
  4. ^ Creighton 1916, p. 736.
  5. ^ Creighton 1916, p. 737.
  6. ^ Creighton 1916, pp. 737–8.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Moore 1917, p. 389.
  8. ^ Westbrook 1991, p. 169.
  9. ^ Westbrook 1991, p. 170.
  10. ^ a b Waks 2007, p. 29.
  11. ^ a b Moore 1917, p. 387.
  12. ^ Moore 1917, pp. 387–8.
  13. ^ Westbrook 1991, pp. 112–3.
  14. ^ a b c d Westbrook 1991, p. 168.
  15. ^ a b Fesmire 2015, p. 22.
  16. ^ a b c Creighton 1916, p. 735.
  17. ^ a b c Jackson 1917, p. 150.
  18. ^ Creighton 1916, p. 741.
  19. ^ Creighton 1916, p. 738.
  20. ^ Creighton 1916, p. 739.
  21. ^ Creighton 1916, p. 740.
  22. ^ a b Moore 1917, p. 386.
  23. ^ Moore 1917, p. 388.
  24. ^ Moore 1917, pp. 386–7.
  25. ^ Westbrook 1991, p. 182.
  26. ^ a b c Waks 2016, p. 10.
  27. ^ Striano 2016.
  28. ^ Caruso & Dussel 2012, p. 51.
  29. ^ Caruso & Dussel 2012, p. 53.
  30. ^ Fesmire 2015, p. 232.
  31. ^ a b Waks 2016, p. 11.
  32. ^ Westbrook 1991, p. 179.
  33. ^ Westbrook 1991, pp. 214–5.
  34. ^ Fesmire 2015, p. 23.
  35. ^ Waks 2007, p. 27.
  36. ^ a b c Waks 2016, p. 9.
  37. ^ Waks 2016, p. 13.
  38. ^ Waks 2016, p. 8.
  39. ^ Westbrook 1991, p. 169–70n.

Sources edit

  • Caruso, Marcelo; Dussel, Inés (2012). "Dewey in Argentina (1916–1946): Tradition, Intention, and Situation in the Production of a Selective Reading". In Bruno-Jofré, Rosa; Schriewer, Jürgen (eds.). The Global Reception of John Dewey's Thought: Multiple Refractions Through Time and Space. Routledge. pp. 43–58. ISBN 978-1-136-59652-0.
  • Westbrook, Robert B. (1991). John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-2560-8.

External links edit

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