John Dewey and Paulo Freire: pedagogical theories, feminist revisions

Abstract

This essay is an attempt to revisit the chosen powerful pedagogical theories with the lenses provided by feminist educational theories and practice. It is proposed to acknowledge the limitations in the thoughts of John Dewey and of Paulo Freire and to consider the issues they ignored or distorted.It is argued that the assumptions behind Dewey’s progressivism are highly gendered. They include a construct of the teacher as being known for her facilitative and nurturing approaches rather than as a positive authority figure; a construct of child as an active, seeking subject; and an image of boys as fitting this construct of a child and girls as docile and dutiful. Freire’s work includes the conflicts that emerge from specificity of oppression, the internal contradictions of political projects or the ambiguities of history. These conflicts are hidden in Freirean abstractions. Finally, it is argued that gender relations and women’s position within the educational system remain undertheorized in both Deweyan and Freirean theories. The potential is clearly there to develop feminist research within the problematic of both powerful theories.