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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / John Dewey’s account of human individuality blends various ideas that cut across many of his works. In “Time and Individuality,” Dewey discusses the essence of the individual as “temporal seriality.” In Human Nature and Conduct, he talks about the self as a collection of habits that change throughout one’s life. In A Common Faith, Dewey calls the whole self an ideal. Furthermore, Dewey addresses the issue of one’s individuality being threatened if one falls victim to mechanistic and mindless routines; that is, when routine shrouds one’s daily activities, moral and intellectual growth is stunted. Ensnarement in routine is the mechanization of daily activities that unfold in an uninspired and lethargic manner. Although Dewey discusses how individuality can be threatened, his thoughts on the subject nonetheless turn on the idea that if life is to be meaningful, one must learn to express one’s individuality. For Dewey, the authentic expression of individuality is art. But, how does one express one’s individuality? Are there any tools within Dewey’s philosophy that can be used to ensure the perpetuation of one’s individuality. The impetus for this thesis is to provide an analysis of key texts that are not only relevant to Dewey’s account of human individuality, but that are also relevant to Dewey’s instrumentalism. Through close textual analysis, I will seek to highlight elements in Dewey’s philosophy that can be used to ensure the continuation of one’s individuality. The following question will thus serve as a guide throughout this inquiry: “If human individuality can be threatened and even lost, what are some practical ideas in Dewey’s philosophy that can be used to ensure the perpetuation of one’s individuality?”

The purpose of this dissertation is to better understand the formative import of the relationships between adults and the young in their corresponding roles as teachers and students between the first year of kindergarten and the last grade of high school (K-12 education). My approach to this issue is twofold: First, I argue that it is imperative that educators effectively recognize the personhood of students within K-12 schools. Second, I define schools as formative communities organized for the purpose of furthering the moral growth of students. These arguments will be supported by a theoretical framework articulated around the concepts of the personhood of students, the interpersonal stance in education, moral growth, and schools as formative communities. I propose a characterization of these four interrelated concepts based on an analysis of Stephen Darwall’s philosophical work on respect, dignity, and the second-person standpoint; Aristotelian virtue ethics and character education; and John Dewey’s philosophy of education, especially in his conceptions of growth, community, participation, and the moral nature and aims of education. I conclude by theorizing schools as communities organized towards the fundamental purpose of fostering the moral growth of students, and argue that this purpose requires engaging students to fully participate of school life as persons. In studying some of the most basic questions about K-12 schooling from the perspective of philosophy of education, it is my intent to produce a framework that is conceptually well-grounded and clear enough to provide practical guidance for school teachers and leaders.

It is the purpose of this thesis to define and explain the educational philosophy of instrumentalism as developed by John Dewey.

En 1951, dans une ultime réintroduction à Expérience et nature , John Dewey proposait d'y remplacer le concept d'expérience par celui de culture, ce dernier constituant un socle solide sur lequel établir sa philosophie. Si cela révèle une certaine in fluence de l'anthropologie culturelle , cette thèse vient démontrer que ce socle sur lequel Dewey édifie sa philosophie, et notamment sa philosophie politique, est la philosophie de la culture de Hegel. Centrée autour de son concept de Bildung, la philosophie hégélienne de la culture est ancrée dans un naturalisme et un historicisme que Dewey reprend à sa manière et dans son contexte, non sans avoir adressé quelques critiques à Hegel et à la philosophie en général. La critique de Dewey est d'abord et avant tout celle de l'absolutisme qui a pour corrélat la critique d'un certain brutalisme politique hégélien, mais le pragmatiste états-unien, n'a nié Hegel que pour mieux le conserver. Cette thèse reconstruit ainsi le fil d'une philosophie de la culture portée par Hegel, puis Dewey, explicitant les rapports de l'esprit à la culture et de la culture à la nature qu'énoncent leurs philosophies. Cette thèse expose ensuite la conception deweyenne du politique et de la démocratie afin de montrer comment celui-ci pense l'interaction de la culture et du politique dans le but infiniment reconduit de savoir ce que l'on fait. / In 1951, John Dewey wrote a re-introduction to Experience and Nature, explicitly saying he should replace the concept of experience by the concept of culture, on which his philosophy should be based. If this choice reveals the influence of cultural anthropology over John Dewey, the current thesis demonstrates how Dewey's philosophy, and especially his political philosophy, was actually based on Hegel's philosophy of culture. Built on the concept of Bildung, Hegel's philosophy of culture is rooted in naturalism and historicism, two features that characterize Dewey's philosophy in its own way, although it also contains criticisms addressed to Hegel, and to philosophy in general. Focusing on absolutism and what he calls Hegel's political brutalism, Dewey's criticisms negate Hegel's philosophy only to better preserve it. This thesis intends to reconstruct a philosophy of culture that goes from Hegel to Dewey, making explicit the link between spirit and culture and between culture and nature as found in them. We then expose Dewey's political philosophy and his conception of democracy to show how he thinks the interaction of culture and politics in the ever-renewing goal of knowing what we do.

The Scottish Curriculum for Excellence is framed, without visible theory, in language embedding the value of children’s experiences. In association with a policy encouraging practitioners to develop healthy home/school links, early childhood practitioners develop pedagogical practices in support of this curricular language of experience. One aspect coming into focus is children’s experiences in general rather than only those which take place within institutional walls. One way children introduce their out-of-school experiences into classrooms is by voluntarily bringing treasured objects from home to early childhood setting doors. By jointly engaging with John Dewey’s view that worthwhile educational experiences are developed through interactions and continuities, the pedagogic practices of twelve early childhood practitioners and the view that each child-initiated object episode could be viewed as part of a child’s experience this research aims to better understand practitioners’ development of educational experiences through their responses to the objects forty children voluntarily brought to school. In support of this aim three research questions focused on 1) what objects children brought? 2) what practitioners said and did with the objects? and 3) what practice similarities and differences were visible across two consecutive age groups: 3-5 year olds in a nursery (preschool) and 5-7 year olds in a composite Primary 1/2 class (formal schooling)? During an eight month period in 2009 data were collected by classroom observations, collection of photographic images and practitioner interviews in a government-funded, denominational, early childhood setting in a Scottish village school. Data were analysed for the physical and social properties of children’s objects, practitioner’s pedagogic practices when engaging with the brought-in objects and similarities and differences in object-related classroom behaviours as epitomised in the relationships in each classroom. The findings were that practitioners made use of three main pedagogical practices when engaging with children’s brought-in objects: transforming objects into educational resources, shaping in-school object experiences and building a range of relationships around these objects. While the broad patterns of practice used in both classrooms were similar the details of practice showed underlying framings of children and their futures were different in each classroom. It is argued that what Dewey’s views offer, in the context of these findings, is a theoretical framing of experience that opens new possibilities for practitioner’s individual and group reflections on their current practices and collaborative practice development. His is one of the languages of experience available as practitioners and policy makers around the world grapple with educational questions.

The purpose of this analysis is to explain the instrumental theories of Dewey and Ayres; their analysis of societal problems and the proposed solutions; and finally their perception of the future direction of society. Dewey and Ayres both utilized the instrumental theory of value to analyze problems and propose solutions. According to this theory, something has value if it enhances or furthers the life process of mankind. Therefore, this should become the criterion to be utilized in determining the future courses of action. They both agree that policy decisions should be made with at least one goal in mind: progress.

The problem of this study was to effect a comparative study of B. F. Skinner and John Dewey with respect to the development of a technology of teaching. The purposes of this study were to analyze and compare the writings of Dewey and Skinner as they relate to the development of a technology of teaching, to synthesize the findings of this analysis and comparison and direct it to the technology of teaching, and to create and enumerate new insights into the teaching phenomena. The procedures for completing the study were based upon the selection of four basic constructs which allowed a framework on which to hang a comparative study of B. F. Skinner and John Dewey as their writings related to the development of a technology of teaching. These constructs were (1) naturalism and the scientific point of view; (2) knowledge and experience; (3) evolution and control of culture; and (4) the philosophy of education as it relates to the technology of teaching. The methods used to complete the study were the analysis and synthesis of Dewey's and Skinner's writings and their relative positions to the four constructs mentioned were shown. Other authorities were also consulted in hopes that the positions of the two men might be delineated accurately. Certain selected passages of each man's writings were presented and compared hoping to show clearly the relationship between the two men's writings and how they relate to the development of a teaching technology. Any person who is concerned about education, its processes, and its outcome has an opportunity to design and thereby improve the process by the adoption of a technology of teaching as prescribed by the analysis of Dewey and Skinner, or perhaps in consequence of attempting, in light of their writings, seriously to re-think what it is we believe and do.

La pensée de John Dewey ouvre de nombreuses voies pour repenser la légitimité politique en présentant la démocratie comme une expérimentation, une suite d'enquêtes : bref, sans solution générale préétablie. L'idéal démocratique que Dewey développe ne s'articule pas autour d'un centre commun et unique : un demos unifié qui serait la marque d'une identité collective nationale. Au contraire, le foyer de la légitimité démocratique est décentré, délocalisé et dénominalisé, car ce sont les « publics » qui s'assimilent chez Dewey à des pouvoirs constituants. Cependant, Dewey est incapable de rester fidèle à la conception décentrée de la démocratie qu'il introduit pourtant. Son appel à la reconstruction d'un demos (au singulier) homogène semble l'emporter sur le nécessaire développement de demoï (au pluriel) hétérogènes. En fait, sa conception démocratique sous-tend l'uniformisation des particularités des problèmes qui font naître les publics. Les différentes problématiques sociales sont toutes ramenées sous un problème englobant, premier, général et peut-être même final : la condition des travailleurs. Le peu d'attention qu'il accorde à certaines problématiques, comme celles impliquées par le racisme ou le sexisme, illustre bien cette forme d'avalement de la diversité des publics dans l'unité d'un public commun et central, seul apte à permettre le changement social. Sur la base de cette réinterprétation, il importe de réévaluer l'apport de Dewey aux réflexions entourant la question de la légitimité politique dans le contexte actuel marqué, d'une part, par l'éclatement des formes de participation citoyenne en dehors des canaux traditionnels, et d'autre part, par la multiplication et l'enchevêtrement d'institutions ayant autorité. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Légitimité, public, décentrement démocratique, participation citoyenne, inclusion, pluralisme, diversité sociale, John Dewey, G.W.F. Hegel, James Bohman, Iris Marion Young, Pierre Rosanvallon.

John Dewey’s Art as Experience (1934) declares art to be the “incomparable organ of instruction” on the third to last page of the book. This dissertation analyzes the place of children within the aesthetic philosophy Dewey expresses in the text and what the implications of Art as Experience could mean if applied to the art-making of children as the foundation for developing kindergarten and elementary curriculum. By exploring Dewey’s earlier writings on education and art, the dissertation develops a view of how art-making could be applied in a Deweyan pedagogy. The main influences on Dewey’s aesthetic development are explored including the frequently overlooked influence of F. Matthias Alexander. Particular emphasis is given to Dewey’s relationship with Albert Barnes and Dewey’s place in the Barnes Foundation as the Director of Education. The writings of Barnes and Dewey’s three associate directors of education are considered for their possible influence on Dewey’s aesthetic development as it applies to establishing a Deweyan philosophy of art-based education. A selection of the initial reviews of Art As Experience from 1934 and 1935 are analyzed to establish the reception of the book. The contentious arguments that Dewey and Benedetto Croce exchanged in print from the late 1940s until both men’s deaths are explored for what they reveal about Dewey’s view of intuition in art-making. A selection of contemporary writers’ views on Dewey’s aesthetics are considered as well as the conclusions of the 1989 University of Illinois Symposium on the influence of Art as Experience. The dissertation concludes by isolating twenty concepts from Art as Experience and considering their meaning as the foundation on which kindergarten and elementary curriculum could be formed. The guidelines are built upon 76 passages from Art as Experience and establish John Dewey as a dominant influence in the formation of Art Education. / text