Introduction
John Dewey was known as America’s quintessential philosopher of the early twentieth century. Along with William James and Charles Sanders Peirce, he was one of the founders of the philosophical tradition known as pragmatism. This tradition grew out of a distinct US context; it rose and fell in prominence across the century. A late-century renaissance in Dewey and pragmatism especially demonstrates its significance as a social theory. Across the same decades, Dewey’s importance spread worldwide as an educational reformer. This is ironic as he was first and foremost a philosopher and not an educator.
Dewey and his first wife Alice were heavily involved in the practice and theorizing of schooling at the turn of the twentieth century when their own children were young. The laboratory school that they founded at the University of Chicago and Dewey’s talks to parents and public essays for educators remain significant today. Across his writings, Dewey’s focus in education...
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Stone, L. (2017). Dewey’s Social Philosophy. In: Peters, M.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-588-4_399
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