Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:29:39.080Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE PARADOX OF RACE AND CULTURE IN DEWEY'S DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2017

Thomas Fallace
Thomas Fallace*
Affiliation:
William Paterson University of New Jersey
*
[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Democracy and Education was Dewey's magnum opus on education, the work in which he pulled together decades of research and thinking on schooling in a democratic society. It was also the work in which Dewey explicitly and implicitly affirmed his theories on race and cultural development. In this intellectual history, the author argues that Democracy and Education represented a transition in Dewey's thinking on race and culture, away from his previous concerns with psychological-sociological stage theory toward his expanded focus on cultural pluralism as an essential component of democratic life. As a result, Dewey presented a contradictory perspective on race and culture that both depicted nonwhite societies as previous steps in the universal stages of development, but also valued racial and cultural diversity as necessary elements of his theory of cultural pluralism. The juxtaposition of Dewey's pre-1916 concern with genetic stage theories and his post-1916 concern for cultural pluralism created a paradox in his views on race and culture, one with which educators are still struggling today.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 473 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1 Dewey, John, “From Absolutism to Experimentalism (1930)” in The Later Works, vol. 5 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), 156 Google Scholar; John Dewey to Horace Kallen, July 1, 1916 (record 03236) in The Correspondence of John Dewey, Vol 1: 1871–1918, 3rd ed. CD-ROM version, ed. Hickman, Larry (Carbondale: Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University, 2005)Google Scholar.

2 Quoted in “Textual Commentary” in The Middle Works, vol. 9 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), 397 Google Scholar.

3 Hollinger, David, Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism (New York: Basic Books, 1996)Google Scholar; Menand, Louis, The Metaphysical Club: The Story of Ideas in America (New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2001)Google Scholar; Westbrook, Robert, John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

4 Westbrook, John Dewey, 212.

5 Margonis, Frank, “John Dewey's Racialized Visions of the Student and Classroom Community,” Educational Theory 59 (Winter 2009): 17–39 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sullivan, Shannon, “(Re)construction Zone” in In Dewey's Wake: The Unfinished Work of Pragmatic Reconstruction, ed. Gavin, W. (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2003), 109–27Google Scholar.

6 Sullivan, “(Re)construction Zone,” 119.

7 Dewey, John, “Address to National Negro Conference (1909)” in John Dewey: The Middle Works, vol. 4 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), 157 Google Scholar.

8 Dewey, John and Dewey, Evelyn, “Schools of To-Morrow (1915)” in The Middle Works, vol. 8 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1979), 340, 351 Google Scholar.

9 See Spencer, Herbert, First Principles (London: Williams and Norgate, 1864)Google Scholar; Tylor, Edward Burnett, Anthropology (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1881)Google Scholar; Ward, Lester Frank, Dynamic Sociology, or Applied Social Science (New York: D Appleton and Co., 1883)Google ScholarPubMed; and Ward, The Psychic Factors of Civilization (New York: Ginn and Co., 1893)Google Scholar; Giddings, Franklin, Principles of Sociology (New York: Macmillan, 1896)Google Scholar; Baldwin, James Mark, Mental Development in the Race and the Child (New York: Macmillan, 1895)Google Scholar; Harris, William Torrey, The Psychologic Foundations of Education (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1902)Google Scholar; Hall, G. Stanley, Adolescence (New York: D. Appleton and Press, 1905)Google ScholarPubMed; and Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Macmillan, 1899)Google Scholar.

10 Morgan, Lewis Henry, Ancient Society (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1877), xxxi Google Scholar.

11 Dewey, John, How We Think (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997—originally published in 1910), 160 Google ScholarPubMed; Dewey, John, “Contributions to Cyclopedia of Education” in The Middle Works, vol. 6 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 399 Google Scholar; Dewey, John, “Some Stages of Logical Thought (1900)” in The Middle Works, vol. 1 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976)Google Scholar, passim.

12 Dewey, “Some Stages of Logical Thought,” 151.

13 See author, “John Dewey and the Savage Mind: Uniting Anthropological, Psychological, and Pedagogical Thought, 1894–1902,” The Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences 44 (Fall 2008): 335–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Susan Blow to William Torrey Harris, June 12, 1896 (record 01247), in The Correspondence of John Dewey, Vol 1: 1871–1918. Third edition CD-ROM version, ed. Hickman, Larry (Carbondale: Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University, 2005)Google Scholar; Runyon, Laura, “A Day with the New Education,” Chautauquan: Organ of the Chautauqua Literacy and Science Circle 30 (1900): 591Google Scholar.

15 Dewey, John, The Child and the Curriculum and The School and Society (1899/1902), 10th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 48 Google Scholar.

16 John and Evelyn Dewey, “Schools of To-Morrow,” 168.

17 John Dewey, to Clara Mitchell, Nov. 29, 1895 (record 00272) in The Correspondence of John Dewey, Vol 1: 1871–1918, 3rd ed. CD-ROM version, ed. Hickman, Larry (Carbondale: Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University, 2005)Google Scholar; Dewey, The School and Society, 9.

18 Dewey, John and Tufts, James H., “Ethics (1908)” in The Middle Works, vol. 5 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 23, 26 Google Scholar, 6.

19 See Barkan, Elazar, The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Conceptions in Britain and the United States between the World Wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Cravens, Hamilton, The Triumph of Evolution: American Scientists and the Heredity-Environment Controversy, 1990–1941 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Gossett, Thomas, Race: The History of an Idea in America (New York: Schocken Books, 1963)Google Scholar; McKee, James, Sociology and the Race Problem: The Failure of a Perspective (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Richards, Robert, Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987)Google Scholar; Stocking, George Jr., Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

20 Dewey, “Contributions to Cyclopedia of Education,” 406.

21 Dewey, , “The Philosophical Work of Herbert Spencer (1904)” in The Middle Works, vol. 3 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Ann, Jo Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 196 Google Scholar.

22 Dewey, John, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to Philosophy of Education (New York: Free Press, 1916), 184 Google Scholar, 191, 195, 208, 219.

23 Dewey, Democracy and Education, 274, 275, 309.

24 Dewey, Democracy and Education, 3, 4, 7, 15, 17.

25 Dewey, Democracy and Education, 36, 48.

26 Dewey, Democracy and Education, 207, 229, 338, 340. See Dewey, John, “Interpretation of the Savage Mind” in The Middle Works, vol. 2 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Ann, Jo Boydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 39–52 Google Scholar.

27 Dewey, “Interpretation of the Savage Mind,” 224, 211, 225.

28 Dewey, “Interpretation of the Savage Mind,” 21, 82, 84–85.

29 Dewey, John, “Nationalizing Education (1916)” in The Middle Works, vol. 10 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 205, 204 Google Scholar.

30 Dewey, John, “American Education and Culture (1916)” in The Middle Works, vol. 10 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 198 Google Scholar.

31 Dewey, Democracy and Education, 331.

32 Scudder Klyce to John Dewey, April 4, 1915 (record 03511) in The Correspondence of John Dewey, Vol 1: 1871–1918, 3rd ed. CD-ROM version, ed. Hickman, Larry (Carbondale: Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University, 2005)Google Scholar.

33 Dewey to Klyce, June 19, 1915 (record 03540).

34 See, for example, John Dewey, “Review of The Psychic Factors of Civilization,” by Ward, Lester F. (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1893)Google Scholar; Social Evolution, by Kidd, Benjamin (New York and London: Macmillan Co., 1894)Google Scholar; Civilization During the Middle Ages, by Adams, George B. (New York: Charles Scriber's Sons, 1894)Google Scholar; and History of the Philosophy of History, by Flint, Robert (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894)Google Scholar; The Early Works, vol. 4 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1972), 208 Google Scholar.

35 Dewey, John, “The Need for Social Psychology (1917)” in The Middle Works, vol. 10 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 56 Google Scholar, 58, 60, 59.

36 Dewey, John, “The Subject-Matter of Metaphysical Inquiry (1915)” in The Middle Works, vol. 8 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 11 Google Scholar.

37 Dewey, “The Subject-Matter of Metaphysical Inquiry,” 7.

38 Dewey, John, “The Need for Recovery of Philosophy (1917)” in The Middle Works, vol. 10 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 11–12 Google Scholar.

39 John Dewey, Democracy and Education, 87, 90.

40 Ripley, William Z., The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study (New York: D. Appleton and Press, 1899)Google Scholar; Brigham, Carl C., A Study of American Intelligence (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1923)Google Scholar.

41 Boas, Franz, “The Mind of Primitive Man,” The Journal of American Folklore 14 (Jan.–Mar. 1901): 3 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 6, 3, 11

42 Kroeber, A. L., “Eighteen Professions,” American Anthropologist 17 (Apr.–June 1915): 285 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 286.

43 Dewey, , “The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy (1910)” in The Middle Works, vol. 6 of The Collected Works of John Dewey, ed. Boydston, Jo Ann (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976), 14 Google Scholar.

44 See Butchart, Ronald, “Race, Social Studies, and Culturally Relevant Curriculum in Social Studies’ Prehistory: A Cautionary Meditation” in Histories of Social Studies and Race, 1865–2000, eds. Woyshner, Christine and Bohan, Chara (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 19–36 Google Scholar; Hirsch, E. D., The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children (New York: Mariner Books, 2007)Google Scholar; Nieto, Sonia, Affirming Diversity: The Sociopolitical Context of Multicultural Education (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1992)Google Scholar; Valencia, Richard, ed., The Evolution of Deficit Thinking: Educational Thought and Practice (New York: Routledge, 2012)Google Scholar, Scott, Daryl Michael, Contempt and Pity: Social Policy and the Image of the Damaged Black Psyche, 1880–1996 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Skiba, Russell, “‘As Nature Has Formed Them’: The History and Current Status of Racial Difference Research,” Teachers College Record 114 (2012): 1–49 Google Scholar; Paris, Django, “Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: A Needed Change to Stance, Terminology, and Practice,” Educational Researcher 41 (2012): 93–97 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.