EdTech and Dewey’s Normative Core – Philosophy Meets Political Economy

John Dewey made contributions to a wide array of fields, especially education. In “Democracy and Education”, he outlines his rich theory on education. His ideas have sometimes been distilled to favouring ‘learning by doing’ over ‘learning by listening’. Dewey did advocate for learners to make more hands-on experiences rather than solely being exposed to textbooks, but his philosophy has a stronger normative core than that.

In my presentation, I will lay out this normative goal of his philosophy in a twofold way: providing contexts on his social activism and utilizing concepts from political economy. Dewey’s social activism—especially during his time in Chicago, includes his work with Jane Addams at Hull House and the founding of the Laboratory Schools. Since these activities informed Dewey’s theories, their normative goals need to be included in considering Dewey’s philosophical legacy for education. Secondly, concepts from political economy, such as the imperative of economic growth and alienation allow for further insights into the strong normative core of Dewey’s educational and social philosophy and enrich his ideas of education as growth and the importance of experience respectively.

In the last part of the presentation, I will extend this analysis of Dewey’s theories to the implications for modern educational technology. For several years, generative AI (genAI) has been marketed to the education sector, with both teachers and students being seen as potential users of BigTech’s genAI models. The aforementioned framework with its focus on the normative core of Dewey’s work, enables the development of a normative stance on the impact of genAI on education, grounded in an understanding of Dewey’s work through the lens of political economy concepts.

Part of panel Philosophy of Technology meets Political Economy: Reflections in the context of the Technical University.