Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education

John Dewey’s Democracy and Education was published in 1916. The historic context of the text is relevant to the trajectory of the book for a number of reasons, including the general framework of capitalism and the Second Industrial Revolution, the challenges to democracy in the United States, and the connections between scientific advancements and education reform.

The Second Industrial Revolution took place between the latter part of the 19th century and the start of World War I. It continued the mechanization and specialization of manufacturing on a mass scale of its earlier counterpart, the First Industrial Revolution. Indeed, Dewey published this book during the war, although the United States did not officially enter until 1917. The advanced combat technologies—such as U-boats, machine guns, and chemical weapons—used in World War I were the direct result of the technological development of the Second Industrial Revolution. On the positive side, the Industrial Revolution brought with it urbanization, public transportation, sanitation, and city planning, which Dewey mentions in the text. In his view, these tangible results of scientific advancement serve as practical links between education, the physical world, and society.

At the same time, the Second Industrial Revolution entrenched unequal social relations. On several occasions, Dewey addresses the subject of capitalism in Democracy and Education. For example, he examines the relationship between the ruling class and those they rule throughout history and up until the early 20th century. This topic is relevant to the question of education because it had traditionally been divided into vocational training (apprenticeships) for the working masses and a liberal arts education for the upper classes.

Different types of educational reform occurred starting from the early 19th century until the time of Dewey’s writing. Dewey specifically focuses on two German education reformists, Friedrich Froebel and Georg Wilhelm Herbart. The former established the concept of kindergartens as places where very young children could learn through activities while being nurtured by caregivers. Kindergartens eventually spread throughout Europe, the United States, and beyond. Herbart was considered one of the fathers of pedagogy as a discipline. Dewey also briefly mentions the Montessori children’s house founded by Maria Montessori in the early 20th century, whose influence spread to the United States around the time of Dewey’s writing. Montessori’s method was based on using active learning and interacting with the environment. It shares some principles with Dewey’s approach to education, although Dewey is somewhat critical of it for other reasons.

International developments in psychology and physiology also shaped Dewey’s thinking. In 1896, Dewey released his classic article “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology" about reflexes (automatic bodily actions) and the reflex arc (the nerves responsible for reflex action). At the same time halfway across the world, Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov published his investigation of employing the techniques of classical conditioning on canines (the proverbial Pavlov’s dogs). Later, Pavlov received the Nobel Prize for medicine. In this book, Dewey discussed the relevance of behaviorist, conditioning techniques to the realm of education.

One of Dewey’s key themes throughout Democracy and Education is the need to link education to social context. Dewey was not the only thinker working in this direction in this era. The Belorussian psychologist Lev Vygotsky specialized in the psychology of childhood development. One of his key points was the emphasis on social interaction and ordinary activities to optimize childhood development. In this way, Vygotsky’s work is similar to Dewey’s.

Dewey considers democracy as an entire system beyond government, one that features equal social relations. Yet such relations cannot be established without addressing politics. For this reason, Dewey examines some of these issues throughout the text, for instance, the fact that children should be focusing on education, and that basic equal rights should be granted regardless of gender or race. In some circles, his views would have been considered progressive for his time. In terms of Dewey’s immediate political context, many basic problems remained. For example, it was not until 1920 that the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified allowing women to vote, and it was not until 1938 that the Fair Labor Standards Act regulated the problem of child labor. Racism, disenfranchisement, and xenophobia remained systemic problems. The 1924 Immigration Act set quotas for immigration and banned immigration from Asia altogether, and it wasn’t until the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-century that racial segregation was seriously addressed.

Dewey explicitly considered the broad social environment important and formative. It is no surprise that all these factors found reflection in Democracy and Education.