人類的政治與日常生活內容存在於公共領域和私領域中，隨著社會的自由化與民主化，公私領域也對教育產生影響。本研究把公共領域視為政治生活的空間，人們在其中通過彼此的共同經驗來討論各種議題。私領域則是涉及自身關係與親密關係等內容，其發展與公共領域有密不可分的關係。本研究重新描述了Dewey教育理論中的經驗與民主等概念，且針對其中的不足之處，企圖以公私領域的概念加以充實之。研究者主要從四個部分的分析來重構Dewey的理論：一、增加生活經驗的多樣性；二、社會化與個性化的兼顧；三、公共與私人的民主生活；四、民主教育的自主與團結。根據上面的分析，最後研究者對Dewey的教育理論提出了四點建議：第一，把公私領域的概念融入Dewey的經驗理論中，使人們注意到在經驗的連續性及交互作用中，存在那些公共與私人生活的複雜關係；第二，重申個性化和社會化必須兼顧的重要性；第三，瞭解各種團體的互動關係能使共同生活更為完善；第四，把各種公共與私人的關係納入考量中，將有助於彰顯出完整的人類生活面貌。 / The politics and daily life of human lay both in the public and the private sphere, along with the liberalization and democratization in the society, the public and the private sphere also bring about influence on education. The study treats public sphere as the realm of political life. In the realm, people discuss various subjects with their associated experiences. The private sphere involves self and intimacy relations, their development have inseparable relevance to public sphere. The study redescribes the concepts of experience and democracy in the Dewey’s educational theory, and attempts to enrich his shortage with the concept of the public and the private sphere. The Author reconstructs Dewey’s educational theory by four points: Adding the variation of life experiences, giving equal attention to socialization and individualization, public and private democratic life, autonomy and solidarity of the democratic education. Accordingly, the author proposes four suggests to Dewey's educational theory: Firstly, if people want to understand the complexity of the public and the private life, they need to integrate the public sphere and the private sphere into Dewey’s experience theory. Secondly, reiterating the importance of the individualization and the socialization must be given equal attention. Thirdly, understanding the interactive relationships in various associations could cause to a better associated living. Fourthly, it will be helpful to show a complete human life by taking all kinds of the public and the private relation into account.

This dissertation examines the techniques and themes of William Burroughs by placing him in the American Pragmatist tradition. Chapter One presents a pragmatic critical approach to literature based on Richard Rorty and John Dewey, focusing on the primacy of narration over argumentation, redescription and dialectic, the importance of texts as experiences, the end-products of textual experiences, and the role of critic as guide to experience rather than judge. Chapter Two uses this pragmatic critical lens to focus on the writing techniques of William Burroughs as a part of the American Pragmatist tradition, with most of the focus on his controversial cut-up technique. Burroughs is a writer who upsets many of the traditional expectations of the literary writing community, just as Rorty challenges the conventions of the philosophical discourse community. Chapter Three places Burroughs within a liberal democratic tradition with respect to Rorty and John Stuart Mill. Burroughs is a champion of individual liberty; this chapter shows how Burroughs' works are meant to edify readers about the social, political, biological, and technological systems which work to control individuals and limit their liberties and understandings. The chapter also shows how Burroughs' works help liberate readers from all control systems, and examines the alternative societies he envisions which work to uphold, rather than subvert, the freedom of human beings. Chapter Four concludes by suggesting some of the implications of Burroughs' work in literature, society, and politics, and by showing the value and importance of Pragmatism to the study of American literature and culture.

The overall purpose of this thesis is to investigate, illuminate and clarify meaning making processes and content when children between the ages of 1-3 encounter nature in a preschool practice. Further, the aim is to develop and illustrate action-centred methodological approaches that facilitate investigations of individual, social and cultural dimensions of preschool children’s meaning making of nature. The results are presented in four substudies that all take their starting points in John Dewey’s pragmatic philosophy, with a specific focus on Dewey’s concept of transactions, his theory of action and educative experience as meaning making. In the first substudy, a Practical Epistemology Analysis (PEA) is developed and used to investigate physical meaning making by studying actions and the consequences of these actions. In the second sub-study, a Custom Analysis is developed to facilitate investigations of how the preschool culture contributes to children’s meaning making of nature. An Epistemological Move Analysis (EMA) is used in the third sub-study for investigations relating to teachers’ guiding processes. Here, a Substantive Learning Quality Analysis (SLQA) is also developed and used for investigations of multi-dimensional learning qualities in children’s learning about nature. In the fourth substudy, the analysis methods above are refined to form a tool that can be used by teachers in their reflective work with pedagogical documentation in preschool practice. The results illuminate a multifaceted perspective of meaning making about nature. In this context, meaning making includes cognitive, physical, moral and aesthetical qualities, and nature content includes caring for nature, health and well being in nature and knowledge about natural phenomena and processes. The results contribute to a critical discussion about preschool science education that concerns how preschool practices can highlight nature learning and the multifaceted aspects that are of importance for making meaning of the environment and of life.

Thesis advisor: Cynthia L. Lyerly / This study is based on the premise that navigating boundaries of the self is a historical, ideological process. Up until the turn of the century, categories of race, class, and gender were seen as fixed constructions that grounded individual selves within non-negotiable spheres. The advent of modernity, however, witnessed a number of political, economic, and social changes. Reformers in the early 1900s were thus able to renegotiate the structures of American public life, using education as their primary means. By combining accepted, unifying, pragmatic principles with more radical ideas of social revolution, John Dewey, Jane Addams, and W.E.B. Du Bois were able to rethink class, gender, and race and thereby attempt to mold anew the identity of the American public. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

This study is an investigation of the relationship between assessment and learning in education, and specifically, in the context of Australian secondary students studying English. The purpose of this research is to contribute to change in the way assessment of learning is conducted in view of the shift of educational values from content based towards a more goal-orientated process. Therefore, we begin this study with the premise that educational values should not only inform assessment in terms of outcomes and accountability as specified in national guidelines. They should also support a pedagogic process which helps to develop in students a heightened sense of the value of their own contributions to the community, academic and otherwise. The intellectual context of this study begins with an overview of most prominent educational theories. We illustrate John Dewey’s view that education should not only prepare one for life, but should also be an integral part of life itself. Dewey insisted that education was based in experience and that educational institutions should therefore honour and build on students� experiences. Piaget believed that children are quite sophisticated, active thinkers and theorists. Vygotsky saw all learning, knowledge, and experience had a social basis. Together these three theorists emphasize the active role of students as individuals (Dewey and Piaget) or a group (Vygotsky). Further, as society’s values shift from the Industrial Age to an Information Age, there is a growing expectation for individuals to be active and informed citizens, with the ability to exercise judgment and the capacity to make sense of their world. In response to these issues, we conclude that the teaching and assessment processes must support these kinds of requirements. We examine literature related to learning theories and assessment with the objective of ascertaining and illustrating aspects which they share and which, in our view, hamper the development of learning environments enabling exploratory and critical learning. We argue that when assessment criteria predetermine the learning outcomes, this results in teaching models where students’ learning needs are also predetermined. This process alienates students from their sociocultural context which shapes them and from which they derive their identify and the sense of their own value. Consequently, students become an object of pedagogic tools, rather than rightful participants in the lives of their various communities. Against the background of these reflections, we set out in this study to investigate how learning and assessment can be linked together. To this end, we develop the concept of an Exploratory Learning Environment. In order to articulate the framework of such an environment, we draw on a number of principals generally associated with humanist/constructivist/postmodern approaches to learning and assessment. In the course of this work we argue that students’ ways of knowing, and how they learn, cannot be divorced from their individual, and yet socially (interactively) constructed (negotiated), cultural experiences (terms of reference). The philosophy of the Exploratory Learning Environment can be described as promoting engagement and construction, thus supporting learning through experience, inquiry,experimentation and critical reflection. Consequently, in the Exploratory Learning Environment we seek to integrate pedagogic task construction and students’ expectations. To this end, we concentrate our research on strategies, or tools, enhancing students’ critical forms of engagement in their community. We aim for the academic knowledge, which they construct as a result, not to serve arbitrarily constructed performance indicators, but the students themselves and the community which they engage. Regarding assessment, our objective is to ascertain the diversity of conflict-generating concerns which students take into account in order to motivate the kinds of socially responsible solutions that they create and, as a result, the kinds of relationships which they want to establish. This approach to assessment allows us to focus students’ learning on developing critical thinking skills whose validation comes from students’ own evaluation, rather than from an abstract source of authority. This arrangement of creating learning environments rich in tools enhancing students’ critical forms of engagement we carry out using two classes of Year 10 and one class of Year 8 students in two secondary schools. Results from the study demonstrate significant advantages that can be gained when assessment is not limited to the measure of a ‘product’, but is based in pedagogy enabling critical negotiation. For example, students developed a sense of ownership of their learning task, felt motivated to explore conflicting issues, and, interestingly, valued the assessment process and looked forward to learning about the quality of their performance. In summary, the theoretical reflections conducted in this study and the experiment conducted within the Exploratory Learning Environment model, together, provide valuable and reliable evidence supporting the need for a critical evaluation of the currently existing relationship between teaching and assessment. Further, this thesis offers examples of solutions in which this link can be fostered. It demonstrates that, when students are empowered to learn by critically linking academic and other forms of knowledge residing in their community, the assessment process become a meaningful tool to them and they become involved in their assessment. At the same time, teachers learn to reduce the grip they hold on the learning and assessment processes. They do so by adopting the role of a facilitator of the students’ negotiation process. This is very different from the traditional teaching practices where the learning process is restricted, rather than enhanced, by assessment.

<p>Flexibel skolstart är ett förslag från Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting och innebär att ett barn kan börja skolan när det anses vara som mest lämpligt. Lämpligheten skall avgöras av föräldrar i samtal och samverkan med förskolepersonal och skolpersonal. Förslaget går ut på att barn börjar skolan när det är som mest lämpat, vilket kan ske när som helst under året. I förslaget finns en spann mellan barnets femte levnads år till och med dess åttonde där det finns möjlighet att välja sin skolstart utifrån individens förutsättningar och vilja. Syftet med vårt arbete var att ge en helhetsbild av det pågående förändringsarbetet för ett livslångt lärande, en flexibel skolstart - flexibel skolgång. Vi undersökte synen på en flexibel skolstart hos de verksamma i försökskommunerna, med tonvikt på konsekvenser. I arbetet med att behandla och bearbeta frågan har vi tagit hjälp av John Deweys teorier. Det livslånga lärandet och den flexibla skolgången/skolstarten är en enligt oss en naturlig förlängning av den reform som på 1990-talet förde in sexåringarna i skolan. Dokument som läroplanerna och IUP:n framhäver redan en strävan mot en starkare individualisering i skolan och mot en mer sammanhållen skolform. Vår undersökning är baserad på tidigare svensk forskning, John Deweys teorier samt en öppen enkät utskickad till Sveriges försöksverksamheter. Efter analysering och tolkning av vårt resultat anser vi att konsekvenserna av en ökad flexibilitet skulle kunna gynna eleverna och deras lärande. Med en slopad timplan, en stark och tydlig struktur (både för eleven och pedagogen) samt en flexibel skolgång skulle visionen om en skola för alla, göras fullt möjlig. Men arbetet kommer att kräva tid, engagemang och en attitydförändring kring skolans uppgift och utformning.</p>

No description available.

Flexibel skolstart är ett förslag från Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting och innebär att ett barn kan börja skolan när det anses vara som mest lämpligt. Lämpligheten skall avgöras av föräldrar i samtal och samverkan med förskolepersonal och skolpersonal. Förslaget går ut på att barn börjar skolan när det är som mest lämpat, vilket kan ske när som helst under året. I förslaget finns en spann mellan barnets femte levnads år till och med dess åttonde där det finns möjlighet att välja sin skolstart utifrån individens förutsättningar och vilja. Syftet med vårt arbete var att ge en helhetsbild av det pågående förändringsarbetet för ett livslångt lärande, en flexibel skolstart - flexibel skolgång. Vi undersökte synen på en flexibel skolstart hos de verksamma i försökskommunerna, med tonvikt på konsekvenser. I arbetet med att behandla och bearbeta frågan har vi tagit hjälp av John Deweys teorier. Det livslånga lärandet och den flexibla skolgången/skolstarten är en enligt oss en naturlig förlängning av den reform som på 1990-talet förde in sexåringarna i skolan. Dokument som läroplanerna och IUP:n framhäver redan en strävan mot en starkare individualisering i skolan och mot en mer sammanhållen skolform. Vår undersökning är baserad på tidigare svensk forskning, John Deweys teorier samt en öppen enkät utskickad till Sveriges försöksverksamheter. Efter analysering och tolkning av vårt resultat anser vi att konsekvenserna av en ökad flexibilitet skulle kunna gynna eleverna och deras lärande. Med en slopad timplan, en stark och tydlig struktur (både för eleven och pedagogen) samt en flexibel skolgång skulle visionen om en skola för alla, göras fullt möjlig. Men arbetet kommer att kräva tid, engagemang och en attitydförändring kring skolans uppgift och utformning.

No description available.

El objetivo de esta tesis es ofrecer una reconstrucción de la teoría de la investigación de John Dewey, prestando atención a sus antecedentes en los escritos del padre del pragmatismo, Charles Sanders Peirce, y a algunas derivaciones de tal teoría en la teoría de la argumentación contemporánea y en los estudios sociales de la ciencia. La misma está dividida en tres partes dedicadas a (I) explorar algunos antecedentes de la teoría de la investigación de Dewey, (II) desarrollar y analizar críticamente los aspectos centrales de tal teoría y, por último, (III) seguir la pista de algunas de sus derivaciones. El punto de partida es el análisis de la concepción de la lógica de la investigación de Peirce, tal como éste la fuera construyendo a partir de su crítica a la filosofía moderna. Ofrecemos una reconstrucción de las ideas de Peirce que permite dar cuenta de que, pese a las importantes diferencias entre las ideas de Peirce y Dewey, los desarrollos de este último pueden ser considerados como una prosecución, en nuevas y profundas direcciones, de algunas de las ideas más destacadas del primero y que constituyen, por ello, una lectura posible de algunos de los escritos más destacados de Peirce. En la segunda parte, la central de esta tesis, se aborda la teoría de la investigación de Dewey. En este marco, se reconstruye la teoría de la experiencia de Dewey, que constituye, como se argumenta, un verdadero punto de partida para la teoría de la investigación. Se argumenta que la teoría de la experiencia de Dewey puede ser considerada como un análisis de las consecuencias para la filosofía de algunos de los resultados más influyentes en el campo de la biología, la psicología y la antropología social en relación con la comprensión de los seres humanos. Se reconstruye también la teoría de la investigación que, al ser comprendida como una forma de la experiencia, permite dar cuenta del carácter mediador y transformacional del conocimiento. Se analizan, asimismo, las consecuencias que para la comprensión de la lógica se siguen de dicha concepción y se argumenta que, pese a lo que Peirce y algunos intérpretes contemporáneos sostienen, la lógica de Dewey puede ser considerada una verdadera lógica. Además, en esta segunda parte se analiza la concepción deweyana de la valoración y se reconstruye una perspectiva acerca de la interdependencia del conocimiento y los valores. Asimismo, se argumenta que, y contra lo que las críticas de Horkheimer y Marcuse sugieren, la teoría de la valoración de Dewey tiene un potencial crítico que permite plantear y abordar el problema de los fines de la acción y, en especial, los de esa acción cognitiva a la que llamamos ciencia. En la tercera y última parte de esta tesis se abordan algunas de las derivaciones de la teoría de la investigación de Dewey. En primer lugar, se exploran las relaciones entre la propuesta de Dewey y la de uno de los más destacados representantes de la teoría de la argumentación contemporánea, a saber, Stephen Toulmin. Se muestra que en la obra de este último puede identificarse una dimensión pragmatista y deweyana. En segundo lugar, se aborda la cuestión de la relación entre la teoría de la investigación de Dewey y el giro hacia las prácticas de los estudios sociales de la ciencia. En particular, se analizan algunos aspectos de la obra de Bruno Latour y de la de Karin Knorr Cetina, mostrando las profundas e interesantes continuidades que suponen con el trabajo de Dewey. Además, se aborda un problema fuertemente discutido en el ámbito de la sociología del conocimiento, a saber, el problema de la reflexividad de los estudios de la ciencia, con el objetivo de ofrecer una mirada deweyana sobre tal cuestión, lo que permitirá sostener una interpretación de la filosofía del conocimiento de Dewey como filosofía política de la ciencia.