John Dewey and the Challenge of Progressive Education

Abstract

In The School and Society John Dewey noted new tendencies in education, e.g., manual training and nature study. He raised two related questions: (1) how are we to understand the new educational trends as reflections of the social context—as an inevitable effort to bring education into line with the broader pattern of change in industrial society? And (2) how are we to build upon and direct them and align them with democratic social ideals? Analogous questions arise in today‘s era of economic globalization, and information technology networks, as we observe new educational trends from collaborative learning to charter schools, and even virtual schools. This essay reviews Dewey's answers to questions 1 and 2 in School and Society, and then uses them as a template for an analogous inquiry into today‘s situation. I raise two parallel questions: (1) how may we understand our new educational trends in relation to the global network context? And (2) how may we build upon and direct these new educational trends to realize the contemporary democratic aspirations of a global network society?

Keywords

• John Dewey, Progressive Education, Social Context, Information Society