The study aims to clarify some actual contents that we think should be noted in the study of Dewey‟s educational philosophy. The study begins with Dewey‟s criticism of traditional education, which served as the basis for his progressive educational views. The article then analyzes the learnercentric educational process and teacher‟s qualities from a progressive viewpoint. Progressive education‟s ultimate aim is to achieve democracy in education. That, in our opinion, is the prominent reason that the influence of Dewey‟s (...) educational philosophy continues to have a bearing on the education systems of the United States, many European countries, and Asia. The article concludes with John Dewey‟s contributions to educational development to demonstrate that his progressive educational views still have directional value and provide meaningful guidance for educational innovation in many countries. (shrink)

The rise of progressive education -- John Dewey -- Other pioneers in the progressive education movement -- The progressive education movement during the first half of the twentieth century -- The fifties -- The sixties and seventies -- A nation at risk (1983) -- The eighties and nineties -- No child left behind -- Maria Montessori -- Teacher education programs -- Middle schools -- Choice -- Education of the gifted and talented -- Progressive education today -- (...) The future of progressive education. (shrink)

John Dewey was a progressive theorist, a pragmatist, a philosopher, and arguably the most influential American educator of the twentieth century.1 Yet despite extensive documentation about John Dewey's philosophies of education and democracy, there is limited research about Dewey's views about race and racism, especially as they relate to schooling.2 While some scholars argue that Dewey was a progressive advocate for equity and equal rights,3 others point to Dewey's silence on issues of race and assert that he failed (...) to adequately challenge racist policies of his time.4 Most scholars take a more moderate view. They contend that while Dewey did some good work in relation to race, he often did not go far enough.5In... (shrink)

Schools, colleges, and universities have become homogenizing systems that are almost exclusively focused on imposing a pre-ordered curricula through exams and grades or tight research lines. In the process, they are killing passion, creativity, and individuals’ potential and skills. Ultimately, schools and academia make up a system that serves a collective machinery but suffocates individual growth. This state of affairs is not a necessary evil. Learning, discovering and teaching can be a natural, spontaneous and luminous expressions of a free and (...) progressive growth if they are allowed to be practiced in an appropriate environment. This is a ‘manifesto’ for a Free-Progress-Education (FPE) paradigm according to which the best way of learning, acquiring knowledge, and doing research comes through a process of free self-directed learning, and a progress of self-unfoldment and self-discovery, that must be guided from within. In schools, colleges, universities and beyond. A FPE learning centre would be expected to foster curiosity, intuition, self-directed-learning in diversity, and, especially, wholesome respect for the practice of complete and responsible freedom of individual expression.FPE goes beyond the standard paradigm of unschooling or the pedagogical approach of democratic schools since it includes self-directed-education that can also work in high schools, colleges, universities, and research centres. It iAfter a brief introductory presentation, a personal preamble of the author describes his experiences with institutionalized learning from childhood to the doctoral dissertation and in a high school as a teacher. Then, the roots of the stagnant state of education will be investigated which is still based on an industrial and mechanistic mindset, and is perceived with increasing dissatisfaction. While analysing the detrimental effects that a managerial and industrial mentality has had on the education and intellectual growth of several generations, we will take as an example the deficiencies of the so-called big science, i.e. of the modern, large-scale scientific initiatives. Surveying past and present learning approaches such as the interesting renaissance of homeschooling and welcoming new trends such as unschooling or democratic education, the second part of this book looks beyond these paradigms searching for a wider spirit of education. It is emphasized that no reform is possible inside the current school and university paradigm, because it is in its essence an authoritarian system that won't allow itself to be dismantled from within. The last part of this book focuses upon a brief set of alternative proposals, which aim at overcoming the centuries-old shortcomings of the present educational system, by favouring intrinsic over extrinsic motivation. Preliminary practical ideas are put forward on what a free-progress learning community might look like, and what the first steps for its realization might be. It is explained there why it is only through a change from the ground up that the certificate-oriented educational system can transform itself into a project-oriented, self-organized, competence-portfolio based one, with no exams, grades, degrees, or other administrative trammels. At the same time, it must be made clear that the ultimate aim of doing away with the present system of assessment criteria would be to install a much deeper and articulated paradigm shift than some superficial reform and even beyond the actually undeveloped democratic education concept which still falls short beyond high-school level. What is visualized is an evolutionary pedagogical perspective, compared to the conventional one, and presented as the necessary condition for a 'Copernican approach' to education. Only after that perspective has been realized can new competences, curiosity, intuition, and real forms of creative learning return to flourish in schools and academia. (shrink)

How and why we should educate children has always been a central concern for governments around the world, and there have long been those who have opposed orthodoxy, challenged perception and called for a radicalization of youth. Progressive Education draws together Continental Romantics, Utopian dreamers, radical feminists, pioneering psychologists and social agitators to explore the history of the progressive education movement. Beginning with Jean Jacques Rousseau's seminal treatise Emile and closing with the Critical Pedagogy movement, this book draws (...) on the latest scholarship to cover the key thinkers, movements and areas where schooling has been more than just a didactic pupil-teacher relationship. Blending narrative flair with thematic detail, this important work seeks to chart ideas which, whether accepted or not, continue to challenge and shape our understanding of education today. (shrink)

Although considered a figure of great importance and influence by his contemporaries, Edmond Holmes has been consigned to relative obscurity in the progressive educational tradition. This book reinstates Holmes as a key figure in the history of progressive education, both as a School Inspector and educational thinker, who was instrumental in forming a set of ideas and principles which continue to resonate in education today. Working as Chief Inspector, Holmes scorned mechanical obedience in the classroom and was appalled (...) by the inability of teachers to allow pupils to express themselves freely and imaginatively. His seminal publications positioned him at the vanguard of educational reforms and he became a notable contributor to the New Education Fellowship. His work, however, was not exclusively educational, and in later life Holmes published on religion, philosophy, poetry and literature, subsuming his educational viewpoint into a much wider ‘philosophy of life’. His spiritual leanings and call for an improved education system which would draw out the potential for development already within the child inspired successive generations of progressive educators. Combining biographical detail and key critical analysis, this book will contribute to current debates surrounding creativity and the curriculum, along with the need for alternative educational voices within the state system of regulation. (shrink)

What is progressive education? -- Origins of progressive education -- Progressive education in action: what really happens -- Broken promises: why progressive education has failed to deliver -- Making progressive education work: perspectives, conclusions, and recommendations.

This is the third of three volumes containing a report from the International Panel on Social Progress. The IPSP is an independent association of top research scholars with the goal of assessing methods for improving the main institutions of modern societies. Written in accessible language by scholars across the social sciences and humanities, these volumes assess the achievements of world societies in past centuries, the current trends, the dangers that we are now facing, and the possible futures in the twenty-first (...) century. It covers the main socio-economic, political, and cultural dimensions of social progress, global as well as regional issues, and the diversity of challenges and their interplay around the world. This particular volume covers topics such as world cultures and religions, families, global health, education, and the contributions of social sciences to institutional change. (shrink)

This article discusses how John Dewey's “Report and Recommendation upon Turkish Education” and some of Dewey's related travel narratives reflect “civilizing mission” imperatives and involve multiple utopian operations that have not yet attracted political-philosophical attention. Such critical attention would reveal Dewey's misjudgments concerning issues of diversity, geopolitics, and global justice. Based on an ethicopolitical reading of the relevant sources, the aim here is to expose developmentalist and colonial vestiges, to raise searching questions, and to obtain a heightened view on the (...) stakes of Dewey's utopianism and progressive pragmatism. The article concludes that the acknowledgment of the Armenian genocide constitutes a major challenge to Dewey scholarship. (shrink)

Develops a critique of utopianism through a comparison of the works of Karl Marx and F. A. Hayek, challenging conventional views of both Marxian and Hayekian thought.

One of the mantras of progressive education is that genuine learning ought to be exciting and pleasurable, rather than joyless and painful. To a significant extent, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is associated with this mantra. In a theme of Emile that is often neglected in the educational literature, however, Rousseau stated that “to suffer is the first thing [Emile] ought to learn and the thing he will most need to know.” Through a discussion of Rousseau's argument for the importance of an (...) education in suffering, Avi Mintz contends that the reception of Rousseau by progressives suggests a detrimental misstep in the history of educational thought, a misstep that we should recognize and correct today. We ought to revive the progressive tradition of distinguishing the valuable educational pains from the harmful ones, even if we disagree with the particular types of pain that Rousseau identified as educationally valuable. (shrink)

Evidence found in The New York Times from 1939 to 1945 and corroborating sources are used to demonstrate the impact of the Second World War on the progressive educational movement. We posit that December 7, 1941 initiated the waning of the progressive education movement in the secondary social studies curriculum. Progressive education emphasized a child-centered, experiential curriculum, an issues-centered approach to learning, and a critical analysis of society. Our findings indicate that the educational climate during the Second (...) World War initiated a shift from questioning American institutions to celebrating them. Education became more centralized and many educational organizations were mobilized to support the war effort. Specifically, the secondary social studies curriculum became one of several propaganda vehicles in support of the war. In addition, colleges and universities became training grounds for teachers, defense workers, and soldiers. A war on the home front ensued. The progressive secondary social studies curriculum itself was viewed as placing the nation at risk. While other factors such as the Back-to-Basics movement and the Cold War contributed to the waning of the secondary progressive educational movement, World War Two (WWII) set the decline in motion. (shrink)

(2006). Acting Neoliberal: Is Black Support for Vouchers a Rejection of Progressive Educational Values? Educational Studies: Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 265-278.

Review of: Robert Louden, Johann Bernard Basedow and the Transformation of Modern Education: Educational Reform in the German Enlightenment, London, Bloomsbury, 2021, 225 p. ISBN: 9781350163669.

The Cambridge Malting House, an experimental school, serves here as a case study for investigating the tensions within 1920s liberal elites between their desire to abandon some Victorian and Edwardian sets of values in favour of more democratic ones, and at the same time their insistence on preserving themselves as an integral part of the English upper class. Susan Isaacs, the manager of the Malting House, provided the parents – some of whom were the most famous scientists and intellectuals of (...) their age – with an opportunity to fulfil their ‘fantasy’ of bringing up children in total freedom. In retrospect, however, she deeply criticized those from their milieu for not fully understanding the real socio-cultural implications of their ideological decision to make independence and freedom the core values in their children’s education. Thus, 1920s progressive education is a paradigmatic case study of the cultural and ideological inner contradictions within liberal thought in the interwar era. The article also shows how psychoanalysis – which attracted many progressive educators – played a crucial role in providing liberals of all sorts with a new language to articulate their political visions, but, at the same time, explored the limits of the liberal discourse as a whole. (shrink)

Summary Two cohorts of teachers working full?time in Church of England voluntary?aided and voluntary?controlled first, primary and middle (deemed primary) schools within the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich were invited to complete a questionnaire concerned with teaching styles in 1982 and again in 1996. The data demonstrate a significant shift toward placing greater value on traditional teaching styles between 1982 and 1996.

Two cohorts of teachers working full‐time in Church of England voluntary‐aided and voluntary‐controlled first, primary and middle schools within the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich were invited to complete a questionnaire concerned with teaching styles in 1982 and again in 1996. The data demonstrate a significant shift toward placing greater value on traditional teaching styles between 1982 and 1996.

This book responds to the need for new ways of defining the aims and forms of education, in an age that has seen the ideals of progress and growth lead the planet and its inhabitants to the brink of extinction. Arguing that contemporary ideas of performance and accountability counter 'the heart' of education, the book calls for a retuning of education that encourages the young generation to study objects and ideas for their own sake, rather than to appease established and (...) conventional notions in society - therefore stepping into a common space of reflection and study. Chapters examine exactly why and how we educate, and offer the alternative of engaging with educational questions, not determined by the logic of progress and growth but with an objective of creating a relation to the world around us. Using the works of Hannah Arendt combined with the tradition of Allgemeine Pädagogik to argue for a new conception of Bildung, the book encourages a method that emphasises outrospection over introspection. Ultimately questioning modern-day education, the book redirects and retunes education away from being wholly concerned with achievement and growth, and will therefore be of interest to students, researchers and academics in the fields of philosophy of education, education and curriculum studies, education policy and politics, and sociology of education. (shrink)

(1978). Testing, Guidance and Curriculum: The Impact of Progressive Education in Waltham, Massachusetts, 1918-1968. Educational Studies: Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 159-171.

Annotation Routledge is now re-issuing this prestigious series of 204 volumes originally published between 1910 and 1965. The titles include works by key figures such asC.G. Jung, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Otto Rank, James Hillman, Erich Fromm, Karen Horney and Susan Isaacs. Each volume is available on its own, as part of a themed mini-set, or as part of a specially-priced 204-volume set. A brochure listing each title in theInternational Library of Psychologyseries is available upon request.

This booklet is the first in a series of publications called Briefings in Bioethics by the Progress Educational Trust (PET) charity. Funding from the Department of Health has facilitated the series, which aims to cover a range of ethical issues in biomedicine. Designer Myths is written by the trust's communications officer, Kay Chung, and examines the scientific, legal and ethical issues arising from preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). With advances in the ability to test for a growing number of specific genetic (...) diagnoses and developments of …. (shrink)

Books of extracts are often written to celebrate a reputation, or to move the reader to greater exertions by the words of the great. Neither of these reasons account for the assembling of this selection. For the traditional book of extracts reflects a traditional conception of their role, and below this conception is rejected. Rather, these extracts are thought of as working documents, selected to provide an occasion for critical and reflective thought, and presented in an order designed to ease (...) the strain we always feel when we think warily, acutely, and yet receptively. This book then deals with that contribution to discussion made by four past educationists. It is interesting to note how long their writing has formed part of the subject-matter of courses, without any precise ideas as to where they fit in the scheme of things. The layout of this introduction and the ordering of the following extracts is intended to try and help meet present needs. (shrink)

The present work includes a discussion about the Kantian ideal of progress and its repercussions in the construction of a cosmopolitan education, by virtue of weighing its validity and the challenges it faces in contemporary times. The manuscript analyzes the Kantian postulates about progress to clarify the guidelines of a cosmopolitan education. The document is structured thanks to the bibliographic study and the consequent systematic review of an exploratory type and the help of the hermeneutical method. The approach to the (...) subject begins with the analysis of the enlightened ideals of a cosmopolitan, universal, humanizing education project aimed at fulfilling the ultimate purposes of reason, as the preferred path for human improvement and social progress. At the end of this work, the incompatibility between that ideal of Kantian cosmopolitan education, which promised freedom and self-control, and the current system that promotes an idea of ​​progress far from these principles is made evident. (shrink)

Robin Barrow claims in his ?Moral education's modest agenda? that ?the task of moral education is to develop understanding, at the lowest level, of the expectations of society and, at the highest level, of the nature of morality???[that is, that moral education] should go on to develop understanding, not of a particular social code, but of the nature of morality ? of the principles that provide the framework within which practical decisions have to be made? [Barrow, R. 2006. Moral education's (...) modest agenda. Ethics and Education 1, no. 1: 3?13.]. Barrow's words are noteworthy not only because he sets out to define the ?modest? agenda of moral education in terms of principles, but also because he asserts that education is important for teaching students to understand morality in such terms. However, even though he is arguing that understanding morality is important in terms of principles, he says little about their function or status, or how we cultivate ourselves so that we act in agreement with and are motivated by the principles of practical reason. In this article I therefore discuss two distinctive features of human beings and offer a Kantian notion of morality as a response to Barrow's development of an understanding of morality in terms of principles. I argue that the principles Kant suggests are constitutive of action, and that we both develop our understanding and also value our humanity when we act in agreement with and are motivated by the suggested principles, and cultivate our predispositions (technical, pragmatic and moral). Moreover, I argue that we reach the goal of ?a progressive organization of citizens of the earth into and toward the species as a system that is cosmopolitically united? [Kant, I. 2006b. Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. Trans. Robert B. Louden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.] when we, inter alia, value our humanity and comply with the principles of practical reason, in practice. (shrink)

At a time of pedagogical exhaustion, this article wants to imagine ways to redeem education, to spare education from its unaccomplished promises, reinvent and renew its vows, and make it somehow work towards possible futures. But how can this be done when there is no longer the old inherited faith in a direction of history with an end, no ‘telos’ nor faith that educational institutions will inevitably move societies forwards? Is there any ‘after’ if the arrow of history points in (...) no direction? What can we collectively expect from education if we have no assurance that schooling can lead to anything better than what we are now, or that caring for truth will make people freer? In place of the modernist idea of progress, the alternative narrative that is being offered to school systems and teachers is what I will describe as the ‘innovation paradigm’. Within this framework what we are, what we have, and what is in place are presented as declining, inadequate, and unsatisfactory. This narrative has become so powerful that from a ‘pedagogical popular culture’ perspective it has turned into the mainstream way of thinking about our educational institutions, practices, and hopes. Would it not, however, be more pedagogically productive to speak of ‘variation’ instead of ‘innovation’? Might this be the potential path for redeeming education after progress? [Editorial note: this paper forms part of the suite of papers entitled ‘Education After Progress’.]. (shrink)

(1984). Conductive Education in the Midlands, Summer 1982: progress and problems in the importation of an educational method. Educational Studies: Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 121-130.

Abstract:This essay discusses two ways in which an agent can make progress with respect to value: self-cultivation and aspiration. The self-cultivator becomes a more coherent version of the person she was before, acquiring beliefs or desires or habits or skills that serve her antecedent valuational condition. The aspirant, by contrast, acquires new values. The existence of aspiration is under pressure from those who would assimilate it either to self-cultivation, or to a change in value that is done to a person (...) rather than a change that is her own work. I show that those two options cannot be exhaustive by discussing liberal arts education; it is, I argue, paradigmatically aspirational. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, the idea that education should function to promote economic progress has played a major role in shaping educational policy. So far, however, philosophers of education have shown relatively little interest in analysing this notion and its implications. The present article critically examines, from a philosophical perspective, the link between education and the currently prevailing understanding of economic progress, which is grounded in human capital theory. A number of familiar philosophical objections to the idea that economic (...) progress is a worthy educational aim are raised, but it is held that many of these objections stem from a partial understanding of economic theory. The article then moves on to investigate the foundations of human capital theory's conception of economic progress. It is argued that there are inherent tensions between the philosophical foundations of the economist's conception of progress and the very essence of education. The article concludes by suggesting that in order to resolve these tensions we should consider grounding the economic theory that guides educational policy-making in an intersubjective or objective conception of welfare. (shrink)

This book engages contemporary debates about the notion of secularism outside of the field of education in order to consider how secularism shapes the formation of progressive sexuality education. Focusing on the US, Canada, Ireland, Aotearoa-New Zealand and Australia, this text considers the affinities, prejudices, and attachments of scholars who advocate secular worldviews in the context of sexuality education, and some of the consequences that ensue from these ways of seeing. This study identifies and interrogates how secularism infuses (...) class='Hi'>progressive sexuality education. It asks readers to consider their own investments in particular ways of thinking and researching in the field of sexuality education, and to think about how these investments have developed and how they shape existing discourses within the field of sexuality education. It hones in on how progressive sexuality education has come to develop in the way that it has, and how this relates to conceits of secularism. This book prompts a consideration of how "progressive" scholarship and practice might get in the way of meaningful conversations with students, teachers, and peers who think differently about the field of sexuality education. (shrink)

Educational theory is a crossroads or better still a marketplace with room for everyone. Here scholar, poet, and statesman take their stand; the philosopher and the theologian have long had theirs, while relative newcomers are the psychologist and sociologist. As long as they speak in harmony, fine. But when discord arises, and the humble teacher finds his work the focus of conflicting theories as to both the aims and methods of education whom should he listen to? Dr Barral is in (...) no doubt whatever. The philosophy of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, with the theology of St. Augustine and Aquinas are her polar stars. At the same time she does occasionally concede a voice to others, but rather grudgingly. So little indeed that she may well win the argument while failing to win our sympathy. (shrink)