Why Do We Still Need John Dewey in the 21st Century? Revisiting Dewey's Academic Influence in China and Beyond

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Seeking Dewey's Relevance

Abstract

This paper revisits Dewey’s academic influence in China and other countries from
different perspectives. First, we propose a new typology to reexamine Dewey’s global academic
influence: time-referenced approach, space-referenced approach, and person-referenced approach.
Then we discussed the relevance and implications of Dewey’s ideas for the contemporary
education in China, which include: 1) the focus on Dewey’s influence shifting from one-sided
reception to two-way communication; 2) positioning Dewey’s thoughts against China’s
indigenous thinkers; 3) legitimizing Dewey’s ideas as the theoretical underpinning of the current
education reform, and 4) externalizing Dewey’s thoughts with the distinct Chinese cultural and
philosophical traditions.

Authors

• Zhengmei Peng, East China Normal University

• Gang Zhu, East China Normal University