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<p>I propose a Deweyan understanding of the relationship between epistemology and politics. The standards of legitimate political debate are an irreducibly political concern and cannot be invoked to justify the politics they facilitate. Yet, such standards cannot be left outside of the scope of legitimate political discourse, because they are both politically contestable and politically significant. A Deweyan account of inquiry, extended to moral and political questions, provides fruitful ground for integrating epistemological concerns within a political framework without reducing either kind of consideration to the other.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This dissertation is an investigation into Knowledge Producing Schools (KPS). KPS is a socio-cultural change effort that reforms that traditional structures of schooling and the connections between schools and the communities in which schools are embedded. KPS schools attempts, through New Literacies, to bring out-of-school practices into schools, in an effort to make students' schooling experiences overall and those incorporating technology more relevant. The position of this dissertation supports KPS goals while rejecting the pedagogy of New Literacies. Instead this dissertations builds upon two elements implicit in KPS/New Literacies work, social inquiry and the facilitation of publics. By making these implict KPS elements explicit this dissertation offers a KPS-Dewey hybrid that locates socio-cultral change efforts in public social inquiry contexts that supports and helps create the communal conditions that can facilitates able, active, publics. These able publics work toward community self-management and alternative representation while dealing with daily problems and current matters of concern. Able publics have been a recent concern in the educational literature that calls for the need of educational reform to be resituated as social movements for education equity. / Ph. D.

SAMMANFATTNING Studien belyser vid vilket ämnesinnehåll undersökande undervisning används i matematik respektive No i årskurserna 4–6. Studien lyfter även skäl till varför man väljer att inkludera undersökande moment i undervisningen. Syftet med studien är att ta reda på när och varför undersökande undervisning används samt för att se om det råder en skillnad mellan matematik och No. Vår studie är baserad på John Deweys teori kring learning by doing. Det handlar om att göra eleverna aktiva i sin lärandeprocess. För att samla in data använde vi oss av en kvalitativ metod. Vi genomförde semistrukturerade intervjuer med lärare med varierad erfarenhet. Samtliga lärare undervisade inom både matematik och No. Studiens resultat visade att tillgängligheten till material, möjligheten till att konkretisera och att införa praktiska moment i undervisningen påverkade ämnesinnehållet och var skäl till varför lärare använde undervisningsformen. Studien visade även att lärare främst plockade in undersökande moment vid ämnesinnehåll som geometri och taluppfattning och tals uppfattning inom matematiken medan det inom No var NTA-lådorna som styrde vilket ämnesinnehåll de arbetade undersökande med.

The aim of this MA thesis was to analyze the correspondences and differences between the individual philosophers and writers from the loosely formed intellectual group of Euro- American pragmatism. The thesis utilizes a chronological approach, starting with the early signs of transatlantic pragmatism in Immanuel Kant's philosophy, and traces this development throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century. In addition to the comparison of philosophical similarities and dissimilarities of the examined authors, each chapter also considered the possible uses of pragmatic techniques in pedagogy and education. Therefore, besides the examination of differing epistemologies of writers of transatlantic pragmatism, this thesis also aims to offer educational suggestions, ideas and practical methods for an educator. The first chapter of the thesis is designed to introduce the theme of the work at large. The second chapter of the thesis analyzes the rudimentary signs of pragmatism, in the revolutionary ideas of Immanuel Kant and Johan Gottlieb Fichte. This chapter focuses on the genesis of subjective idealism, subjective category creation and Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre, along with his lectures on vocations. The third chapter surveys the ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his approaches towards the...

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.

This thesis was written to provide an alternative teaching model for an undergraduate theatre history class. The course design, utilizing the Problem-Based Learning educational model, aims to create a student-centered, experiential theatre history class. The first section explores the history and evolution of the theatre discipline in academia. These chapters examine the expansion and transformation of the theatre curriculum within the discipline and higher education. The second part examines the history and the methodologies of Problem-Based Learning. Based on the philosophy of educator John Dewey, PBL is considered to be a non-traditional method of teaching and learning that encourages the development of self-directed learning and the acquisition of knowledge through experiential education. The final section describes the actual course design. Included in this section are the educational objectives of the class, examples of problems, assessment methods, and an examination of potential challenges in the design.

John Dewey's philosophical work was establishing a continuum between human behavior and nature. Dewey advanced the theory that everything we experience comes through interaction with our surroundings - and articulating our experience by this interaction. Dewey uses experience even in the framework of art - and he stresses the importance of combining art and esthetic experience into our everyday life. The first part of my paper is meant to explain Dewey's philosophical concepts, his view on the issues relating to the common world, his analysis of normal/everyday experience, and his analysis of what he termed esthetic experience. Part two is a comparison between Dewey's philosophy of esthetic experience and Jerome Stolnitz's, another known aesthetic philosopher, and their theories on esthetics. The basic question I seek to answer is whether, despite their differences in theories, Stolnitz was coming from a different theoretical background with different traditions and assumptions, one can still trace certain consensus and mutually shared territory in which their theories merge. And so, I attempt to answer the question, can we find characteristics of esthetic experience that would be plausible to both of them? Or is it rather that their understanding of esthetic experience was so different, that we...