Reconstructing Democracy Recontextualizing Dewey

Focusing on issues of diversity, difference, and inclusion, leading scholars explore John Dewey's pluralistic, deliberative, and communicative theory of democracy. They discuss the tensions between Dewey's two criteria for a democratic society found in Democracy and Education; critique and recreate Deweyan democratic pluralism from a contemporary European perspective that acknowledges the importance of postmodern and poststructuralist thought; examine Dewey's theory of inquiry in ways that illuminate his thinking about the deliberative functions of democracy; and probe the communicative aspects of democracy, emphasizing how emotions and interests both help and hinder communication. These essays challenge, revise, and reinvigorate Deweyan thinking, offering guidance for deeply democratic remedies to the fears, ontological wounds, and practical needs that characterize our problematic times.

Leading scholars challenge and reinvigorate the pragmatic method of John Dewey.

New Studies in Deweyan Education examines in detail some of John Dewey’s most influential writings by connecting them with contemporary issues, perspectives, controversies, and debates. By bringing together scholars from the United States and Germany, this volume offers an international perspective on current implications, challenges, and risks of democracy and education in the contemporary world. This book elaborates on the continuing relevance, resourcefulness, and richness of the Deweyan tradition as a frame of thought and action in the sphere of education. It is divided into three main parts: Education, Schooling, and Democracy; Education and the Reconstruction of Philosophy; and Education, Economy, and the Changing Forms of Capitalism. The chapters in this volume build on each other as they provide a multifaceted picture of Deweyan education’s role in societal reconstruction. Written for students and scholars in the fields of education and philosophy, New Studies in Deweyan Education represents a new, unique, and innovative way of approaching the problems and opportunities of democracy and education then and now.

2016 marked the hundred-year anniversary of John Dewey’s seminal work Democracy and Education. This centennial presented philosophers and educators with an opportunity to reexamine and evaluate its impact on various aspects of education in democratic societies. This volume brings together some of the leading scholars on John Dewey and education from around the world in order to reflect on the legacy of Democracy and Education, and, more generally, to consider the influence of Dewey’s ideas on education in the twenty-first century. John Dewey’s Democracy and Education in an Era of Globalization is unique in that it explores some important tensions and relationships among Dewey’s ideas on democracy, education, and human flourishing in an era of globalization. The contributors make sense of how Dewey would have interpreted and responded to the phenomenon of globalization. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory.

More than six decades after John Dewey’s death, his political philosophy is undergoing a revival. With renewed interest in pragmatism and its implications for democracy in an age of mass communication, bureaucracy, and ever-increasing social complexities, Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems, first published in 1927, remains vital to any discussion of today’s political issues. This edition of The Public and Its Problems, meticulously annotated and interpreted with fresh insight by Melvin L. Rogers, radically updates the previous version published by Swallow Press. Rogers’s introduction locates Dewey’s work within its philosophical and historical context and explains its key ideas for a contemporary readership. Biographical information and a detailed bibliography round out this definitive edition, which will be essential to students and scholars both.

Democracy and Education Reconsidered highlights the continued relevance of John Dewey’s Democracy and Education while also examining the need to reconstruct and re-contextualize Dewey’s educational philosophy for our time. The authors propose ways of revising Dewey’s thought in light of the challenges facing contemporary education and society, and address other themes not touched upon heavily in Dewey’s work, such as racism, feminism, post-industrial capitalism, and liquid modernity. As a final component, the authors integrate Dewey’s philosophy with more recent trends in scholarship, including pragmatism, post-structuralism, and the works of other key philosophers and scholars.

John Dewey is considered not only as one of the founders of pragmatism, but also as an educational classic whose approaches to education and learning still exercise great influence on current discourses and practices internationally. In this book, the authors first provide an introduction to Dewey's educational theories that is founded on a broad and comprehensive reading of his philosophy as a whole. They discuss Dewey's path-breaking contributions by focusing on three important paradigm shifts – namely, the cultural, constructive, and communicative turns in twentieth-century educational thinking. Secondly, the authors recontexualize Dewey for a new generation who has come of age in a very different world than that in which Dewey lived and wrote by connecting his philosophy with six recent and influential discourses (Bauman, Foucault, Bourdieu, Derrida, Levinas, Rorty). These serve as models for other recontexualizations that readers might wish to carry out for themselves.

This introduction to one of the most influential philosophers in American history examines every major dimension of John Dewey's philosophy, from his early post-Hegelian idealism to pragmatic experimentalism, as well as his views on ethics and political theory, philosophy of education, aesthetics, and philosophy of religion. It situates Dewey's thought in the context of his time (1859-1952) and personal biography while also discussing his considerable work as America's foremost public intellectual through the first half of the 20th century. With a particular focus on how Dewey's thought can be applied to real life and its particular relevance to the contemporary moment, Introducing Dewey is the ideal starting point for anyone with an interest in this seminal figure in American philosophy.