DEWEY ON CIVIL RIGHTS, TESTING, INTEREST, AND DISCIPLINE:DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATIONIN PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

In this essay we consider how the principles evident in Dewey's Democracy and Education would have been evident in response to the civil rights movement that took shape shortly after his death, and to the major educational reform movements of today. While acknowledging that Dewey's views on race and human development were inevitably influenced by his social and intellectual context, we maintain that he was fundamentally opposed to racist ideology and related popular beliefs, and that his deep commitment to democracy as a social process would have made him a staunch supporter of the civil rights movement and associated demands for racial equality. We likewise argue that Dewey would have had deep misgivings about the standards-driven assessment regimes that underlie current national reform efforts. In the end we suggest that Democracy and Education still has much to offer students of education today, and can serve as a helpful guide to those who would seek to change educational practice for the better.John Dewey was an intellectual giant and Democracy and Education (D&E) remains among the most important books written about education in the twentieth century. 1 On the centennial of its publication, however, it rarely receives much attention outside academic discussions in philosophy and education. Even then it is often read with an eye toward answering a particular philosophical question or learning something more about Dewey himself. For today's readers outside academia (and many within), D&E can seem dated and obscure. In its pages Dewey addresses problems of the past, and he does so in a language that many find formal and awkward. 2 How could such a book possibly be considered relevant to the educational problems of today, or even the more recent past? Does Dewey's conception of educational reform and social change have a place in contemporary debates about the future of schools and their larger social context? Why should we still read this work?Dewey also has been subject to criticism lately. He has been accused of willful blindness with respect to racial inequity, imperialism, and a number of other contemporaneous social problems. Like other educators in his time, Dewey sometimes displayed an affinity for the idea that children's social development and learning could parallel or reflect the evolution of human society. Early in his career, he advocated a curriculum that featured lessons based on customs, concepts, and technology from earlier epochs of human