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100 YEARS OF JOHN DEWEY AND EDUCATION IN CHINA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2017

Grace Xinfu Zhang  and
Ron Sheese
Grace Xinfu Zhang*
Affiliation:
York University
Ron Sheese*
Affiliation:
York University
*
email: [email protected]
email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Only a few years following the publication of Democracy and Education, from May 1919 to July 1921, John Dewey traveled and lectured in China. He arrived an already famous American psychologist, philosopher, and educator; but over the course of the years after his departure, that fame diminished, turning to infamy in the 1950s and 1960s, only to be somewhat restored in recent decades. The changing attitudes of the Chinese to Dewey and his ideas are associated with the changing, and often tumultuous, cultural and political context for education in China from the time of his visit through the following century. Hu Shi and Tao Xingzhi, PhD students of Dewey at Columbia University, were prominent Chinese educators who adapted Dewey's educational concepts to the Chinese environment, and their work continues to influence educational debate in China today. While there is desire among many contemporary educators for educational reforms that would be in line with Dewey's principles, there are equal or greater pressures for maintaining systems focused on examinations and memorization.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 400 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2017 

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References

NOTES

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