John Dewey, a champion of underprivileged Americans, made significant contributions to the realm of philosophy in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century. Fascinated with and concerned for the inhabitants of urban America, Dewey urged care for the poor and social improvement for the overall betterment of the general public. Dewey advocated the application of reform social Darwinist theory in the establishments most formative in the development of public character: educational institutions. He contemplated effective curriculum design in elementary education. Author Philip W. Jackson offers a detailed analysis of John Dewey’s “School and Society” and assesses the legitimacy of the prominent American philosopher’s argument. Dewey’s work emphasizes and necessitates the strong influence of American school systems in the developmental stages of childhood and adolescence. John Dewey crafts an indefinite correlation between schooling and social progress in his text. Jackson does not intend to refute, nor prove this claim, but he instead provides crucial counterpoint and external perspective. Jackson does admit that John Dewey’s claims still resonate in modern American society.
The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 98, No. 5, Special Issue: John Dewey: The Chicago Years (May, 1998), pp. 415-426
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1002322
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This is an interesting article. Jackson praises Dewey's influence, calling a series of three lectures delivered by him in the late 1800s "a call to arms, whose effect on its initial audience and its early readers must certainly have been galvanizing." In more detail, he talks about the substance of these lectures, emphasizing Dewey's assertion that schools of all levels are vehicles for improving society.
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