A Deweyan positive education: psychology with philosophy

ABSTRACT

Dewey’s vision for schooling can perhaps be described as an early positive education, a term now attributed to programmes derived from positive psychology. Positive psychology’s goals for education share many of Dewey’s ideas about community-mindedness and the role of education in nurturing citizenship. Having emerged from positive psychology, however, current programmes under the umbrella of positive education differ in that they are grounded in science rather than philosophy and are sometimes criticised for being morally neutral and individualistic. In this paper, we argue that the work of Dewey may address these challenges by contributing an understanding of the pragmatic connection between philosophy and psychology, as well as a more social view of education through occupations.

KEYWORDS:

• Positive education
• positive psychology
• philosophy
• Dewey
• occupations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kylie Trask-Kerr

Kylie Trask-Kerr (BA, Grad Dip Ed, M.Ed) is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Positive Psychology in the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education. Her experience includes 15 years as a teacher of philosophy and educational consultant specialising in critical thinking. Her research interests include educational philosophy, learning epistemology and quality of life studies. Kylie’s PhD research explores positive education and its relationship with the purpose of schooling.

John Quay

John Quay is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne. His research interests span philosophy of education, outdoor and environmental education and health and physical education. He is the editor of the Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education. His book publications include Theory and Philosophy in Education Research: Methodological Dialogues (2018, edited with J. Bleazby, S. Stolz, M. Toscano, & R. S. Webster) and Understanding Life in School: From Academic Classroom to Outdoor Education (2015, Palgrave).

Gavin R. Slemp

Gavin R. Slemp (BA, Hons, Psy.D) is a registered psychologist and senior lecturer at the Centre for Positive Psychology in the University of Melbourne. Gavin’s research interests include the predictors of autonomous motivation and well-being, including job crafting, leader autonomy support and health interventions for employees and students. Since March 2017, Gavin has been serving as co-editor of the International Journal of Wellbeing. In addition to his research activity, Gavin is the Director of Undergraduate Teaching at the Centre for Positive Psychology, where he manages and coordinates subjects that have been voted as amongst the best at the University of Melbourne.