Democracy and Education - by John Dewey (Hardcover)

About the Book

John Dewey's Democracy and Education (1916) transformed how people around the world view the purposes of schooling. This edition makes Dewey's ideas come alive for a new generation of readers.

Book Synopsis

The American philosopher John Dewey transformed how people around the world view the purposes of schooling. In Democracy and Education (1916), Dewey opposed the model of education in which adults lecture at students and students follow strict rules. Instead, Dewey called upon schools to provide children with experiences such as gardening, sewing, building structures, conducting experiments in laboratories, and performing in school plays. For Dewey, democratic education teaches young people to become creative individuals who contribute to society.

This edition makes Democracy and Education come alive for a new generation of readers. The editor's introduction explores the main themes of the book and how Dewey's ideas contribute to debates about education standards, testing, accountability, school choice, free school lunch, recess, student discipline, and education technology. Each chapter begins with a brief overview clarifying the argument and its present-day relevance and ends with questions to prompt conversations and research papers. Drawing on more than a century of secondary literature on Dewey's philosophy, this new edition will become the standard for scholars, teachers, and students.

Review Quotes

A new edition of Democracy and Education is timely, especially as renewed interest in Dewey's work is growing around the world. Nicholas Tampio's edition will help students and scholars alike navigate Dewey's writing style and uncover complex ideas that continue to have applied significance in school and society today.--Sarah Stitzlein, author of Learning How to Hope: Reviving Democracy Through Our Schools and Civil Society

After more than a hundred years, Democracy and Education is sprightly with Nicholas Tampio's help, filled with insight that can and should guide future teachers, school leaders, education committees, and officers, as well as parents and guardians. This edition will be of great use to students and scholars of education, politics, and philosophy because of Tampio's outstanding introduction of the work and its central themes and his insightful short statements at the start of each chapter.--Eric Thomas Weber, editor of America's Public Philosopher: Essays on Social Justice, Economics, Education, and the Future of Democracy

At the heart of John Dewey's 1916 Democracy and Education is a concern with how to educate us for democratic citizenship--how to make us appropriately responsive to the world around us. Nicholas Tampio is the ideal philosopher to edit this new edition of Dewey's magisterial text and help us understand its powerful and underappreciated legacy. This is a volume that will generate a great deal of energy, and it will do so at a time when the health of our own education for democracy in the United States and elsewhere is in doubt.--Melvin L. Rogers, author of The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought

About the Author

John Dewey (1859-1952) was one of the great American pragmatist philosophers. He helped run the Laboratory School at the University of Chicago, and as a professor at Columbia University he taught students who brought his ideas about democratic education to places such as India, China, and Mexico.

Nicholas Tampio is a professor of political science at Fordham University. He is the author of Teaching Political Theory: A Pluralistic Approach (2022) and Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (2018).