Deweyan Pragmatism and the Epistemology of Contemporary Social Constructivism

Abstract

In the quest for an epistemology that supports theories of situated cognition and social constructivism, educational theorists and researchers have overlooked one of the most familiar figures in the modern history of educational inquiry—John Dewey. Perhaps one reason for this oversight is that if we adopted Deweyan social epistemology and constructivism we would have to come to grips with his social behaviorism as well. Besides advocating Deweyan epistemological behaviorism, the other purpose for writing this article is to urge the field of education to seriously consider behaviorism as one way of understanding social constructivism and situated cognition.