Dewey provides a rich context in which to develop an understanding of education as growth. By developing an understanding of education as growth, educational research can be incorporated into that context so that a more comprehensive model of education may be considered. Education as growth suggests that education is about progress rather than end states. The knowledge and skills of inquiry must be understood as part of an interconnected whole that includes the physical, social, and intellectual growth of the individual and the community. The role of inquiry in the development of concepts and habits that foster the intellectual and cultural growth of the individual and community are discussed. The work of researchers on math learning disabilities is presented and examined in light of Dewey’s concepts of growth and inquiry so that the educational needs of students with math learning disabilities might be included in a model of education. The quality of the educational experiences of students with math learning disabilities has significant implications for the growth and development of all students, parents, teachers, researchers, and the community. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2009-04-16 19:58:52.504

Zugl.: Augsburg, Univ., Diss., 2001

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Washington, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [162]-172).

Diss.--Tübingen--Universität, 1990. / Vol. 114 de la coll. d'après la CIP de la Deutsche Bibliothek.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1953. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [178]-180).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2008. / Title from title page (Digital Archive@GSU, viewed June 22, 2010) Deron Boyles, committee chair; Eric Freeman, Jennifer Esposito, Donna Breault, committee members. Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-152).

This essay is, in the main, a presentation of Dewey's social and political philosophy, with particular attention being given to his theory of the origin and nature of the state and to his recommendations for a programme of social reconstruction. As Dewey relies on the use of intelligence for conscious intervention within the social process and for the purposive control of social change, the first chapter of this essay is given to an exposition of Dewey's version of the pragmatic method, Instrumentalism. The major influences which operated to shape Dewey's methodological approach to philosophic problems are the following: (1) the rise of American industry: the divorce of production from hand-tool methods and the introduction of technology and mass manufacturing techniques; (2) the emergence of Pragmatism as a distinctive American philosophy; (3) the rising influence of the biological sciences; (4) the contemplative character of classic philosophy. These influences form the matrix out of which Dewey's general philosophic outlook emerged; an outlook in which thinking is shifted from the contemplative to the practical, and which is ordered by the principle that thinking is instrumental to a control of the environment. Consistent with his methodology, Dewey places his theory of the emergence, existence and functioning of the state on an empirical base. Causal agency theories of the state are rejected; a theory of social organization must start with what is observable, human behaviour. The hypostatized "'Individual" and "Society" are dissolved by a psychology of social behaviourism which holds that the individual is an emergent from a group matrix and his behaviour as an individual Is explainable only by reference to the group. Dewey's social theory begins, therefore, with the facts that human beings exist and act within some kind of social grouping and that the consequences of acting within an association are perceived by the Individuals comprising it. The perception of consequences is the keystone of Dewey's theory. In Dewey's view the fact that consequences are perceived gives rise to the problem of controlling certain consequences, and to the correlative problem of providing the apparatus for regulating actions to attain specified and predetermined consequences. Dewey distinguishes two kinds of actions (or transactions, in Dewey's terminology): those whose consequences are direct and confined to the group within which the actions take place are defined as private; but actions which have effects outside of the group and generate indirect consequences are classified as public. The need to control actions affecting the welfare of those not directly involved in the transactions brings into existence a special social group which Dewey calls A Public. This social entity takes on political form, It becomes a political state, when officials or representatives are appointed or elected and the organize the Public to care for the common interest generated by the indirect consequences of transactions. The formation of states in a continuing, experimental process; as the conditions of social life change so does the need for new forms of political organization. Finally, democracy, in Dewey's theory, is a form of government arising out of a specified practice in selecting officials and regulating their conduct as officials. Dewey's social theory implies the direction of society by ideas and by knowledge. It is Dewey's general thesis, therefore, that the method of experimental social inquiry is the most effective means for a community organized as a political state to make satisfactory adaptations to a changing material, intellectual and moral culture and, at the same time, allowing maximum freedom to the individual for the development of his capacities and potentialities. Recognizing that men are ruled by habit and that they cling to long established beliefs, Dewey saw the persistence of the liberal tradition as the means for carrying the experimental methodology into the arena of social and political affairs. But before it could serve this purpose, liberalism had to be reconstructed. In this reconstruction Dewey saw no need to modify the ends of liberalism, but he points out that if they are to play a guiding role in contemporary life liberalism must abandon its atomistic psychology and the correlative doctrines of individualism and laissez-faire and adopt the ideas and methods of an experimental social philosophy. The immediate problematic situation which prompted Dewey to advocate an experimental method of social inquiry operating through a renascent liberalism was the lack of integration in contemporary social life manifested by (1) the fragmentation of society into a multiplicity of changing publics with differing needs and demands, and (2) the apparent absence of a public controlling and directing the apparatus of government. Dewey argues that the impact of science on society has been so traumatic that traditional political methods are incapable of dealing with the problems which have been created. However, he does not specify what the alternative methods are, but only commits himself to identifying the conditions which must prevail if the Great Community and a democratically organized Public are to emerge. These conditions are absolute freedom of social inquiry and the widest possible distribution of its conclusions. Given the foregoing conditions, the state will become effectively the instrument of the Public. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

Thesis--Catholic University of America. / Bibliography: p. 124-128.

This study aims to reconceive the meaning of leisure in school using John Dewey’s theory of education. Though the English word “school” and the Greek word “scholé,” which means leisure, are etymologically related, it is almost impossible to find any relationship between them in contemporary schools. Posed differently, for modern people school is not a place of leisure any more. Modern people understand leisure as a time not to work, as an escape from work. However, for the ancients leisure was a very sacred activity through which they could find their true identity. Therefore, in considering the original meaning of the term leisure, reviving leisure in school means to make a classroom sacred. For Dewey, the necessity for the teacher to provide an appropriate educational environment for the development of a student’s potential is no less sacred than the duties of a priest. This kind of inquiry can help contemporary educators revitalize the deepest meanings in the project of education.

Many of the problems in dominant Western education and philosophy can be connected to various dualisms, in particular reason/emotion, reason/imagination, reason/experience, mind/body, subject/object, individual/community, abstract/concrete, theory/practice and male/female dualisms. These pairs are considered opposites, with the attributes on the left supposedly superior to their dualistic partners on the right. While those attributes on the left, such as mind and reason, are traditionally associated with knowledge, autonomy, citizenship and learning, the attributes on the right, such as emotion and experience, are traditionally thought to be opposed to knowledge, autonomy, citizenship and learning. Drawing on the philosophies of John Dewey and various feminist philosophers, I will argue that the attributes that make up each of these dualistic pairs are not opposed but are actually interdependent and interconnected. For example, I will argue that all thinking and learning involves reason, experience, emotion and imagination interacting with one and other. Neither of these attributes or functions is complete or fully functional without the others. Since mainstream Western pedagogies incorporate such dualisms they are unable to fully facilitate the thinking skills, attributes, dispositions and understandings necessary for autonomy, democratic citizenship and leading a meaningful life. It will be shown that Philosophy for Children (P4C) has the potential to overcome many of the problems with mainstream education, including many gender equity problems, because it is based on Dewey???s philosophical ideals, which reconstruct many of these dualisms. An analysis of the ideals of truth, meaning, community, self, autonomy, democracy, thinking, emotion and imagination assumed by P4C will show how it reconstructs various dualisms and overcomes many problems with traditional schooling. However, it will also be shown that P4C fails to reconstruct the undesirable theory/practice dualism because it doesn???t require students to test and apply their ideas in the real world. This is even though many P4C theorists, such as Matthew Lipman, accept Dewey???s claim that all thinking and learning involve such practicality. Thus, I will reconstruct the P4C pedagogy by integrating it with a Deweyian type of service learning that I call social reconstruction learning. Social reconstruction learning involves students engaging in P4C style communities of inquiry with members of their community in order to reconstruct real social problems. Such a Practical P4C pedagogy can better facilitate reflective thinking, autonomy, active citizenship and meaningfulness.