Rethinking Progressivism and the Crisis of Liberal Humanism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Education for Democratic Citizenship

Overview & Synopsis

In this paper, we examine the current siege on progressivism in light of these dual tendencies from both an historical and contemporary perspective. We defend the democratic objectives of progressive education from various contemporary attacks that view student-centered learning as academically inefficacious. With the assistance of Dewey's arguments, we argue that public schools should produce students prepared to assume their democratic citizenship responsibilities by pursuing the liberal humanistic strand of progressive education. We believe that progressive education approaches that emphasize student centered learning and conjoint decision-making afford an indispensable element to achieve that critically important objective.