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Dewey and Vygotsky: Society, Experience, and Inquiry
in Educational Practice
by Michael Glassman
John Dewey and L. S. Vygotsky share similar ideas concerning the re-
lationship of activity and learning/development, especially the roles
everyday activities and social environment play in the educational
process. However, the two theorists are far apart in their concep-
tion of the relationship between process and goals in education.
Dewey concentrates on means in education, believing that it is the
ability of the individual to question through experience that is most
important for the human community. Vygotsky, while recognizing
the importance of (especially cultural) process in education, sees so-
cial and cultural goals as being integrated into social pedagogy. This
paper compares Dewey and Vygotsky on three key points that re-
late directly to educational processes and goals. First, the two the-
orists are compared on the role of social history and the tools it pro-
duces. Dewey sees social history as creating a set of malleable tools
that are of use in present circumstances. Vygotsky believes that tools
developed through history have a far more lasting impact on the
social community. Second, the two theorists are compared in their
conceptualizations of experience/culture. Dewey sees experience as
helping to form thinking, whereas Vygotsky, in his cultural historical
theory, posits culture as the raw material of thinking. Third, the two
theorists are compared on their perspectives on human inquiry.
Dewey sees the child as a free agent who achieves goals through her
own interest in the activity. Vygotsky suggests there should be
greater control by a mentor who creates activity that will lead the
child towards mastery. These differences are then explored in terms
of how they might impact actual classroom strategies and curriculum.
The work of Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky has had a
growing impact on education in the United States. Many of
Vygotsky’s ideas that have had the greatest resonance for educa-
tors, such as bringing everyday activities into the classroom and
focusing on the importance of social context in learning, bear a
striking resemblance to the work of John Dewey, especially his
writings on education (e.g., 1912, 1916). It is something of a
mystery, then, that there has been so little discussion comparing
the theories of Vygotsky and Dewey. There have been a few at-
tempts to merge Dewey with Vygotsky (e.g., Rogoff, 1993) or to
place Dewey within a larger sociocultural framework (Cole,
1996), but for the most part these works have not included de-
Educational Researcher, Vol. 30. No. 4, pp. 3–14
tailed analyses of important similarities and differences. It is
true that Dewey is not a developmentalist in the same way that
Vygotsky is. But his educational theory comes close in spirit to
Vygotsky’s major questions concerning education, which were
pursued with the greatest vigor by those who followed him (e.g.,
Davydov, 1997; Leontiev 1981). These questions include: How
and why does natural human activity serve as the major impetus
for learning? And how, through understanding that activity, can
we promote and guide human learning? (It is important to sepa-
rate the word activity from the Activity Theory of A. N. Leontiev,
1981, a student and colleague of Vygotsky. In this paper the term
activity is used in its broadest possible sense, the state of being
active rather than passive.)
The similarities between Dewey and Vygotsky, however, belie
one difference of extraordinary import to educators in general,
but especially for those inclined towards the use of activity as a
major teaching strategy. The difference revolves around the ques-
tion of how educators view the process of activity in relation to
the consequences of activity. Are these consequences goals to be
carefully planned and then brought about through active men-
toring on the part of the social interlocutor (i.e., a more seasoned
member of the community who fosters social interaction with a
purpose)? Or are they temporary destinations of little educa-
tional import in and of themselves?
I believe that the issues that separate these two theorists, who
see activity as being of such vital importance, could not be more
profound. It raises the question of whether teachers should ap-
proach students as mentors who guide or direct activity, or facil-
itators who are able to step back from children’s activity and let it
run its own course. It crosses into such areas as culturally and eco-
nomically heterogeneous classrooms, and well as cultural/social
historical attitudes towards education. A comparison of Dewey
and Vygotsky highlights strong reasons why education should be
an active and context specific process, but it also forces educators
to think long and hard about how and why they use activity in
the classroom.
In this paper I compare Dewey and Vygotsky on three specific
conceptual issues that relate directly to educational processes and
goals. These issues are the roles of social history, experience/
culture, and human inquiry in the educational process. Both of
these theorists believe that, in the context of educational processes,
none of these issues can stand without the other two. The dif-
ference between Dewey and Vygotsky involves the relationships
among these three issues. For Vygotsky human inquiry is em-
bedded within culture, which is embedded within social history.
The educational process works, more or less, from the outside in.
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It is social history, and, most important, the tools developed
through our social history that helps to determine our everyday
culture (Vygotsky & Luria, 1993). The social interlocutor stands
as a mediator between tools developed through social history and
individual human inquiry. The interlocutor uses the everyday
culture, which itself is a product of social history, to guide the
thinking of the neophyte.
Dewey would applaud Vygotsky’s emphasis on everyday cul-
ture as the lynchpin of the educational process. Dewey’s notion
of experience is equivalent to Vygotsky’s conception of culture.
(In his attempt to revise his 1925 book Experience and Nature 25
years later, Dewey suggested he could use the term culture in
place of experience.) However, in contrast to Vygotsky, Dewey
emphasizes human inquiry, and the role that it plays in the cre-
ation of experience/culture and, eventually, social tool systems. I
believe Dewey would be very cautious about educators stressing
how individual thinking might be embedded within social his-
tory. One of the major purposes of education is to instill the abil-
ity and the desire for change in experience, and possible resultant
changes in social history, through individual inquiry.
The differences between the two theorists are easily recogniz-
able when one compares Vygotsky’s conception of the “zone of
proximal development” (Rogoff & Wertsch, 1984 ) and the
Dewey-inspired model of “long term projects” (Katz & Chard,
1989, 2000). In many ways, these two educational models oper-
ationalize the theoretical underpinnings of the two thinkers. The
zone of proximal development, especially as it has been interpreted
in the West, focuses on the role of the adult as social interlocutor
who is also a representative of society. These adults mentor chil-
dren in specific, culturally appropriate activity (Berk & Winsler,
1995). The role of the educational process is to prepare children
for more complex activity in the larger social community.
In long term projects children are immersed in everyday activ-
ities. It is expected that the activities of the children will eventu-
ally coalesce around a topic that is of interest to them. The topic
need not be of any relevance to the demands of the larger social
community, or even have meaning or interest for the teacher. As
a matter of fact, the teacher should step back from the process
once children display a relevant interest and act as facilitator
rather than mentor. It is the students who must drive the inquiry
based on their own goals. The children learn that they control
and are responsible for inquiry in their lives, and they determine
what goals are important and the ways in which they can (or can
not) be met (Dewey, 1916). It is a process that will be played out
over and over again over the course of their lifetime experience.
After providing some historical context for these two men, the
remainder of this paper focuses primarily on Vygotsky’s and
Dewey’s visions of social history, experience/culture, and human
inquiry—concepts that are central to understanding the differ-
ences between their approaches to the processes and goals of
education. These differences are illustrated by examining the ed-
ucational models of the zone of proximal development and long
term projects.
Dewey and Vygotsky in Historical Context
There are historically based explanations for both the strong sim-
ilarities and the strong differences between Dewey and Vygotsky.
Although it would probably be a mistake to claim that all, or even
4 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
most, of the similarities and differences between Vygotsky and
Dewey have historical roots, it might be an even greater mistake
to ignore the impact of history on their thinking.
Dewey’s educational philosophy was, in many ways, a critical
reaction to the burgeoning educational system in the United
States between 1870 and 1910 (Handlin, 1959). Public school-
ing developed for a number of reasons during this period, in-
cluding the need for vocational training to meet the demands of
the industrial revolution and the desire to identify and maintain
a specifically American culture. The time frame of the develop-
ment of public schooling in the United States coincided with the
emergence of the progressive movement (Popkewitz, 1987), but
initially schooling did not reflect the internal values of that
movement (Handlin, 1959). There was a distinct separation be-
tween the school culture and the everyday culture of the indi-
viduals for whom the public education infrastructure was being
created (e.g., newly arrived immigrants from Southern and East-
ern Europe).
Public education was highly mechanistic (Pepper, 1942), with
students learning subjects completely divorced from their every-
day reality in stilted and artificial environments. Dewey’s educa-
tional philosophy was originally a critique of this dichotomous
model of education (Handlin, 1959). Dewey combined the
Hegelian idea that activity and thought were both part of a single
experience with the pragmatist’s notion that activity must be un-
derstood within the moment for its specific purposes, and not as
a means to an ideological end. The human condition is enhanced
when individuals engage in the everyday activity of their social
community in a thoughtful and positive way, to the point where
they are able to change that community through the force of
their own actions. In order for a society to progress it must cul-
tivate the individual, sometimes at the expense of its own present
social organization (Dewey, 1954).
Despite the obvious emphasis of individual over social com-
munity by leading progressives such as Dewey, the progressive
movement, and many of the Marxist-based movements, became
political allies in the United States during the early part of the
twentieth century. This may have been the result of the two po-
litical movements’ having only a superficial understanding of each
other (Novak, 1975). At the same time there was a good deal of
interest in Dewey among those attempting to modernize the ed-
ucational system of pre-Revolutionary Russia, such as the “First
Moscow Settlement” (Brickman, 1964; van der Veer & Valsiner,
1991). Much of Dewey’s early works were translated into Rus-
sian, including School and Society (1900) and a 50-page booklet
based on Education and Democracy (1916). The combination of
these two factors probably led to a Deweyan influence on early
Soviet educators such as Blonsky and the young Vygotsky.
In 1928 Dewey visited the Soviet Union (although the schools
were closed for vacation for most of the time he was there). Prawat
(2001) recounts how Dewey visited Second Moscow University
during this trip at the time Vygotsky was a rising young star there.
Dewey certainly met with Blonsky, Vygotsky’s compatriot, and
Prawatt (2001) builds a fairly strong circumstantial case that
Dewey actually met with Vygotsky. This only adds to the proba-
bility that Dewey influenced Vygotsky’s early work.
The period between 1928 and 1931 led to a souring of the re-
lationship between Dewey and official Soviet education. In his
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subsequent articles about his 1928 visit Dewey praised the So-
viet system as being far superior to the American system in bring-
ing the everyday world of the child into the classroom. How-
ever, he also offered a devastating critique that in many ways
defines the difference between his own educational philosophy
and Vygotsky’s educational perspective. Dewey felt the Soviet
educational system was being used for specific propaganda pur-
poses, that is, the education system was being used to develop
good Soviet citizens that understood and fit into the communist
social order (Dewey, 1964). Vygotsky did not see education as
propaganda based, but he did see it as an important and definite
tool in the development of the “new man” (Kozulin, 1990).
Dewey’s critique may have started a rift that came to fruition in
1931 when the Central Committee of the Communist Party of-
fered an official resolution condemning progressive educational
practices (e.g., the project method) advocated by Dewey and his
followers. What followed was the “de-Deweyization” of the offi-
cial educational system within the Soviet Union (Brickman, 1964).
This short history offers some possible reasons for similarities
between Dewey and Vygotsky, such as the focus on activity, the
importance of the everyday activities of the child in the educational
process, and the importance of history. The young Vygotsky was
working within an educational structure that had been influenced
by Dewey’s ideas for a number of years. The important differ-
ences between the two theorists may be partially attributed to the
divergence between progressive education and Marxist ideology
on key issues, such as socially determined goals in activity (Novak,
1975; Popkewitz & Tabachnik, 1981).
Society and History
Both Vygotsky and Dewey agree that the human condition is
based in social interactions. Humans are initially social beings
who slowly develop their individual selves through their relation-
ships (experiences) with others. Dewey (1916) makes the argu-
ment that humans are only human through their social intercon-
nectedness with each other (and actually suggests that helplessness
is, in some ways, a positive attribute because it helps to foster
this interconnectedness). The essential questions that need to be
asked involve how these extraordinary connections come about,
and how the individual begins to take control of them (Dewey,
1925). Vygotsky suggests that it is the ability to develop coop-
erative activity through complex social relationships that sepa-
rates mature humans from all other animals (Vygotsky & Luria,
1993). Humans are best understood as products of these com-
plex relationships.
For Dewey (1916), the individual mind must be understood as
a creative development of social life. The social is primary in that
it comes first, whereas the development of the individual follows
as a shadow of social relationships. Dewey is in many ways fol-
lowing his friend and mentor Mead (1934). But he also speaks to
a larger issue that seems to have been common in the early part of
the twentieth century (it is an important component of Vygotsky’s
theory as well). The general argument is that human beings
originally are born social creatures and develop their sense of self
through their social relationships. An important difference be-
tween Dewey and Vygotsky lies in how much power this indi-
vidual organizer eventually has over future social activities. This
difference is captured in the way Dewey’s idea of cultural in-
strumentality (Eldridge, 1998) compares with Vygotsky’s theory
of cultural historical development (Kozulin, 1990).
For Dewey culture and history provide a malleable set of means
(e.g., tools) that can be used to achieve immediate or easily viewed
ends (see Eldridge, 1998, for an in-depth discussion of Dewey’s
instrumentality). These tools have worth only to the degree to
which they can be used to successfully navigate a given situation.
For Vygotsky (Vygotsky & Luria, 1993) cultural history provides
for a (relatively) more static set of tools and symbols that should
eventually enable members of a society to move beyond pure in-
strumentality, to a higher level of cognitive awareness. Tools are
means for specific, culturally approved consequences that act as
way stations on the path to a socially defined end. Dewey’s cul-
tural instrumentality was criticized for its emphasis on means over
ends in social historical development (Eldridge, 1998; Novak,
1975). Dewey posits that education leads to free inquiry, and free
inquiry leads to a richer society, but he lacks a description of ex-
actly what a richer society looks like. Vygotsky, on the other hand,
is susceptible to the criticism Dewey (1964) makes of the entire
Soviet educational system—that social goals can easily be turned
into propaganda that services the society.
Dewey, Tools, and Long Term Projects
It is an individual’s social history that provides what Dewey
termed “intellectual tools” (Eldridge, 1998). These are the so-
cially developed tools such as morals, ideals, values, and customs
that serve as reference points for the individual as she attempts
to navigate life situations. But these are only reference points, in
that they inform immediate activity, but in an atmosphere of free
inquiry they do not limit it.
The meaning of tools, in a Deweyan framework, is directly re-
lated to their value in a given situation. When the tools no longer
have pragmatic value they are modified or rejected by the indi-
viduals using them. By making tools so dynamic Dewey is sug-
gesting that there are no ends beyond the process of successful
activity within the context of the immediate situation—what
Dewey termed the end-in-view (Eldridge, 1998). The easiest en-
vironments in which humans can use these “intellectual tools”
are those with the greatest degree of shared social history (en-
abling individuals to use shared social ends as a central aspect of
their activity). This allows members of the same group to share
likes and dislikes, to maintain the same attitudes towards objects,
to communicate without a disconnect. The historically defined
“intellectual tools” work more often than not because new situ-
ations and activities reflect the same situations and activities these
shared “intellectual tools” were based on. Those objects and ideas
that fall outside of the shared history are considered suspect
and/or of little worth (Dewey, 1916). But while environments
with a high level of agreement between subjects are relatively
comfortable, they are not beneficial. They do not engage free in-
quiry, which is the bedrock of Dewey’s democratic society.
Dewey (1916) believes that this is a dangerous situation that
leads to narrow-mindedness.
This is a major reason Dewey (1916) posits diversity as an
important aspect of a true educational experience. (He actually
counted diversity as a tool in education.) Dewey sees progress/
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development as occurring only through an equilibration/dis-
equilibration process. For him, “the state of disturbed equilibra-
tion represents need ” (Dewey, 1938, p.27). In his “theory of in-
quiry” Dewey suggests that it is this same type of disturbed
equilibration that drives exploration of new ideas. Many hu-
mans, however, find suspending judgment and reconstructing
the world disagreeable (Dewey, 1933). It is therefore incumbent
on the educational structure to create diverse environments that
demand social inquiry. There is a second, related reason that
Dewey champions diversity. Dewey echoes Mead in his argu-
ment that we see ourselves basically through a “looking glass phe-
nomenon” (Dewey, 1930). Humans see themselves in the con-
text of the way they are viewed by others. For Dewey the raison
d’être for human activity is to make life better and more worth-
while, both for themselves and, especially, for the general social
community. If humans do not see themselves in the context of
social views different from themselves, they are unable to recon-
struct themselves in the face of a problematic society. Unable to
change themselves, and, therefore, unable to change the world,
humans can become slaves to their history and their habits.
Dewey clearly understands the problems that diversity will cause
(Dewey, 1916), and he does not believe that the problems, or
their solutions, will lead to a greater absolute good. He believes
that the process will lead to the process of free inquiry, and free
inquiry itself is good. For Dewey, then, it is not that the means
justify the ends, but that the means are the ends.
The emphasis on process over product in the cause of free in-
quiry is reflected in one of the most important educational ap-
proaches to emerge from Deweyan-based educational philoso-
phies, long term projects (Katz & Chard, 1989). This educational
format stresses the importance of engaging children, as members
of communities, in projects based on subjects that interest them.
It is the students, rather than the teacher, who choose direction,
set goals, and determine effort. The goal of the project itself is
relatively unimportant and can be changed through the com-
bined activity of the children. This is not to say that teachers
should not have an awareness of possible goals, but rather that
they should regard these goals as possibilities that may or may
not be fulfilled by those actually engaged in the project (i.e., the
students). This is why I refer to the teacher in Deweyan educa-
tional philosophy as a facilitator. The major function of the teacher
is to keep students on a stable course in the process of their own
discoveries. I will use two examples to highlight this application
of Dewey’s philosophical approach to education. The first exam-
ple is a long-term project developed through toddler’s interest and
activity in construction (Glassman & Whaley, 2000). The second
is a kindergarten project on shoes (Katz & Chard, 2000).
These two projects are similar in that their goals were not set
through teacher determination but developed over time through
children’s interests. The actual goals (construction for toddlers
and understanding the shoe business for kindergarten children)
had little social meaning outside of the immediate activity. In
many ways these goals were inconsequential to the long-term
learning of the children. This is one of the reasons the teachers
were able to focus on the process of education. In the construc-
tion project, a group of toddlers in a mixed-age classroom (in-
fants and toddlers) developed an interest in a nearby construc-
tion site. The teachers and parents nurtured this interest through
6 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
the introduction of construction type materials and class visits to
the site. The toddlers worked with some of the older infants to
develop their own construction site that served as a learning envi-
ronment and playground. The project on shoes took place in a
kindergarten classroom. The interest initially developed as a re-
sult of discussions of new shoes some of the children wore at the
beginning of the school year. A number of questions emerged
through children’s and teacher’s exploration of their everyday
lives. The questions came from the children, with the teacher play-
ing the role of facilitator by maintaining a list. Special interests of
the children were identified, such as the responsibilities of the sales
person and the manner in which the shoes were displayed. The
teacher arranged a trip to a real shoe store, and the children even-
tually developed their own shoe store in the classroom.
Vygotsky, Social Tools, and the Zone
of Proximal Development
Vygotsky has much the same view of the human as product of so-
cial interaction, with one important difference. Whereas Dewey
fears progressive human thinking being lost in the shared comfort
of common history, Vygotsky is basically agnostic on the subject.
This is because of how Vygotsky views tools and symbols in the
context of development. He believes tools and symbols are used
in the service of culturally defined goals that are far beyond the
immediacy of Dewey’s end-in-view.
Vygotsky sees the social as being of primary influence in the
life of the individual, much the same way that Dewey does. But
Vygotsky (1987) sees tools and symbols as playing a much more
active and determinate role in the lives of individuals. Free in-
quiry is, in many ways, eclipsed by culturally significant and ap-
propriate inquiry (Vygotsky, 1987). Vygotsky agrees with Dewey
that the society (or powers within the society) have a vested inter-
est in the development and maintenance of these tools (Vygotsky
& Luria, 1993). Dewey’s solution is to educate the individual
and diversify the social milieu so that these tools will be brought
into question (a bottom-up/indeterminate approach). Vygotsky
wants to use the educational process to teach new members of the
social community how to “use” important, culturally developed
tools in an effective manner (a top-down/determinate approach).
This top-down approach was exemplified in Vygtosky and Luria’s
research expedition into Central Asia (Luria, 1971). In a highly
controversial natural experiment Vygotsky and Luria attempted
to gauge the impact of new tools on an isolated, homogenous
population. They hypothesized that the introduction of new tools
by a strong social organization (i.e., the Soviet Union) would lead
to the development of a “new” type of citizen.
The relative emphasis on specific, culturally determined prod-
ucts in activity (i.e., the ability to use social tools) is in many ways
at the heart of children’s learning in the zone of proximal develop-
ment the title of a collected work by Rogoff & Wertsch, 1984.
I use two examples from the Rogoff and Wertsch book to high-
light the differences between long term projects and the zone of
proximal development specifically, and the educational philoso-
phies of Dewey and Vygotsky in general. I chose these two ex-
amples both because they have played important roles in current
conceptualizations of the zone of proximal development and be-
cause there is some similarity in ages of the children between
these examples and the two long term projects (construction and
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shoes) mentioned earlier. One example deals primarily with in-
fants (4–17 months of age) and their abilities to engage in joint
social activity with adults using the cultural tool of a “jack-in-
the-box” as a mediating device (Rogoff, Malkin, & Gilbride,
1984). In this study the same two babies interacted with a num-
ber of adults over the course of a year. The emphasis was on how
the adults used their interactions to guide the infant(s) towards
socially appropriate and rewarding social interaction.
The second example involves children’s development of logi-
cal (mathematical) operations through social interactions with
their mothers (Saxe, Gearhart, & Guberman, 1984). In this study
mothers taught their children (between 2.5 and 5 years of age) a
number reproduction game. The goal of the game had a direct
relationship to the type of mathematical skills that are considered
important in the larger society. The logical operations study and
the “jack-in-the-box” study have three things in common which
are indicative of current conceptualizations of the zone of prox-
imal development: (1) There is an emphasis on joint attention
between the adult/mentor and the child/neophyte; (2) there is
some recognition on the part of the adult of a (socially determined)
goal to the activity and an attempt to set up sub-goals to reach that
goal; and (3) there is a focus on the social relationship between the
adult/mentor and the child/neophyte in reaching that goal. The
starting point for children’s learning in both of these examples is
the social tools that the children will eventually need to become
“socialized participants in their culture” (Rogoff et. al., 1984,
p. 31). The adults use their own experience/culture to guide the
children’s inquiry.
These two examples of the zone of proximal development, as
well as the two earlier mentioned examples of the project ap-
proach, will be used throughout the paper to illustrate, in con-
crete terms, conceptual differences between Dewey and Vygotsky.
These examples are especially important in examining the two
theorists diverging viewpoints concerning the mentor/neophyte
relationship and the adult’s role in problem solving.
The Interaction Between History and Tools
The role of tools in activity, and by extension the educational
process, is closely related to the interaction between history and
tool use. Dewey, as already mentioned, sees tools as historically
based, but only valid so long as they are of use to the individual
in the immediate situation. History is implicit in activity, but it
is not determinate. Vygotsky sees history as playing a more piv-
otal role in development and education (Vygotsky & Luria,
1993). It is not the activity that gives meaning to historical arti-
facts, but historical artifacts that give meaning to the activity. So-
cial history is embodied in tools and symbols. These tools and
symbols have meanings and serve as mediational markers setting
frames of reference for individual thinking in context. It is the
object’s history within the social group that helps create mean-
ing in the mind of the child (Vygotsky, 1987).
The most omnipresent and important tool/symbol in the life
of the individual is of course language. Vygotsky and Dewey sug-
gest that the child learns language in social interaction and then
thinks in terms of that language. Vygotsky, however, goes a step
further than Dewey, emphasizing the importance of both history
and context in the meaning each unit (word) of that language has
in the thinking of the individual. Language by itself creates a con-
text for activity and, especially, for reflective thinking about (the
consequences of) that activity. In Thinking and Speech (1987)
Vygotsky takes pains to examine both the historical development
of words over time, how this development is tied to specific cir-
cumstances of use in activity, and the degree to which specific
context can change the meaning of the word. The meaning of a
specific word (e.g., “grasshopper”) in a poem is determined by
the ways in which language emerged in a particular historical
context (Vygotsky, 1987). Change the historical context, change
the meaning of the exact same word, and change the meaning of
the poem. Vygotsky’s theory of social meaning, then, has a strong
connection to the past and an investment in the way in which
the past creates the present and acts as precursor for the future.
This means that the mind is essentially a living catalogue of his-
torical incidence.
There is little discussion of free inquiry in Vygotsky’s work be-
cause the parameters of all inquiry are set by the culture as it is
manifested through its tools and symbols. Changing the focus of
inquiry requires a social organization as strong as the existing cul-
ture that is able to implement new tools and symbols (e.g., the
reasoning behind the expeditions to central Asia). The adult sees
the jack-in-the-box as a potential instrument of amusement where
Bugs Bunny pops out and is then forced back in. It is assumed
that, as a result of social interactions, the child will see the jack-
in-the-box the same way. There is only one way to engage in ac-
tivity with the number reproduction game. The mother sees it as
her responsibility to bring the child closer to this specific under-
standing of socially sanctioned activity.
Dewey is more concerned with the process of history than the
specific goals a social community might achieve through history.
There are two reasons that the process of history is emphasized.
First, Dewey’s vision of the social is forward looking (Campbell,
1995): Dewey (1916, 1938) has tremendous faith in the process
of free inquiry to overcome immediate problems as they occur.
Second, Dewey sees the separation of process from goals as an
unnecessary dualism (Eldridge, 1998). What is most important
is actual activity in the moment and the way that activity leads
to specific judgments that may or may not use historically de-
fined tools. In the learning process the judgments concerning re-
lationship between activity and consequence become intercon-
nected with earlier activities to form a body of knowledge. That
knowledge will then come into play in subsequent, intercon-
nected activities (Dewey, 1916). However, the value of any his-
torically developed knowledge is dependant upon the situation.
In Dewey’s view, stressing specific goals in education can actu-
ally be counter-productive because it may force students to focus
on tools that may be of little use for future problems, instead of
the process necessary to solve problem as they arise. There is little
to be gained in a product sense from having children develop
their own construction site, or build their own well run shoe store
(except for the few who might become construction workers or
shoe clerks). What is important in these activities is that children
experience the way one end-in-view builds upon another to cre-
ate an ever more satisfying experience.
Experience/Culture
The way in which experience is defined sets the context for
Dewey’s entire educational theory; in some important ways
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experience is synonymous with education. As mentioned ear-
lier, Dewey’s notion of experience is, in many ways, parallel to
Vygotsky’s notion of culture.
Dewey’s Experience as Culture
Dewey (1916) sees experience as physical action and the conse-
quences of that action, combined with the judgment of the con-
sequences of that action (motivations). He abhors the dualism
that often emerges between the actions a person takes and the
way this person thinks about these actions. In his view they can-
not be separated, in that where there is no mind, there is no way
of thinking about things outside of the actual action in which an
individual is engaged. To put it in a more academic tone, there
is no such thing as method separate from content, or content sep-
arate from method. A simple example might be eating a slice of
pizza. A person from New York has a method of eating pizza that
involves folding the pizza in half and lifting it up to his mouth.
Take that person and put him in Chicago with deep dish style
pizza and the method necessarily moves to knife and fork. The
content and the method are part of a single activity. The person
from New York might try to lift and fold the deep dish slice, but
judgments resulting from consequences of the action would force
him to adjust his action in subsequent situations. This has im-
portant implications for Dewey’s ideas concerning the goals of
education. If it is impossible to separate physical activity from its
consequences, then it is useless, and possibly detrimental, to plan
the physical activity of others in order to achieve a specific set of
goals. The only viable goal for any activity is the end-in-view,
which is ostensibly a part of the immediate activity rather than
any plan. Dewey emphasizes process not only because he believes
process is the essential quality in a democratic society, but also
because from a non-dualistic perspective experience and process
are one and the same thing.
Dewey (1916) emphasizes the role of vital experience in edu-
cation. He initially posits vital experience as an essential compo-
nent of the educational process. This vital experience moves be-
yond simple rote habit or capricious activity in that it involves
consequences for both the individual and the environment. A
person automatically reciting a times table (rote habit) or avoid-
ing cracks in the sidewalk (capricious activity, if you dismiss the
possibility that it will “break your mother’s back”) are activities
without educational worth.
Worthwhile, or vital, experience in education is activity in
which the link between action and consequence is intercon-
nected with previous and future (related) activities. The conse-
quence or end-in-view is still tied to the immediate situation. But
the process of inquiry used to reach this end-in-view not only has
a connection with, but has been enriched by, previous inquiry in
some way. An important aspect of vital experience is a difficulty
or a problem that must be solved in a way that can lead to both
a satisfactory conclusion and an enriched future inquiry.
Dewey (1925) later developed an alternative conceptualiza-
tion based on primary and secondary experiences, which has im-
portant implications for educators as well as his own ideas con-
cerning education. Primary experiences are the gross, everyday
activities in life that have consequences. These experiences are
broad and crude and involve a “minimum” of reflective activity.
8 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
Primary experience helps to create an aggregate of related activ-
ities that necessarily leads to systematic, regulated thinking about
that activity. Dewey terms this more reflective activity secondary
experience. Secondary experience clarifies the meaning of pri-
mary experience, organizing it so that there is a useful accumu-
lation of knowledge (Dewey, 1925). Secondary experience can
run the gamut from judgments of the relationship between ac-
tion and consequence(s) in early activity, to the development of
hypotheses and theories to explain and examine later activities.
There is a bi-directional relationship between primary experi-
ence and secondary experience, in that primary experience serves
as the basis for secondary experience, but it also serves as tests for
secondary experience. Hypothesis as “intellectual tool” serves as
an exemplar for both vital experience and secondary experience.
Individuals engage in interconnected primary experience until
they slowly organize it into a hypothesis about how things work
in the world. The development of the hypothesis (deductive rea-
soning) becomes an end-in-view for activity. Once the hypothe-
sis is developed it becomes a natural part of inquiry into other
problems. At first it serves as a tool for organizing thinking about
future experiences (inductive reasoning), and maintains its iden-
tity as secondary experience. Eventually the boundary between
organizing the experience and the experience itself will blur and
the hypothesis will become completely integrated into the activ-
ity itself.
According to Dewey (1916) one of the most important roles
of education is to teach children how to maintain these relation-
ships between experiences so that they are constantly both amass-
ing and testing new knowledge. The teacher must use interest to
help students recognize and achieve aims, and then use aims to
develop continued motivation for engaging in activity. Particu-
lar types of thinking are not especially important because that
thinking will eventually need to be reconstructed to meet the
needs of the situation (Dewey, 1916). What is important is that
secondary experience is derived from knowledge and knowledge
is the reconstruction of secondary experience through primary
experience. The knowledge storehouse is dynamic because sec-
ondary experience (should be) dynamic (primary experience con-
tinuously forcing reconstruction in order to deal with the imme-
diate situation).
Social history can, to a certain extent, limit the types of expe-
riences possible. But a major purpose of the educational process
is to show that it is possible for experience to move beyond so-
cial history (Dewey, 1916). In the shoe project there was little, if
anything, in the social history of the classroom or the children to
suggest that a large part of their curriculum would involve creat-
ing a shoe store. One experience gave momentum to the next ex-
perience. The questioning of friends and relatives about shoes led
to the development of a shoe store. The development of a shoe
store led to questions concerning specific issues of how exactly a
shoe store operates. Specific questions about how a shoe store op-
erates led to a field visit to a shoe store in the community. The
children had to reflect on their initial questions about how a shoe
store operates in order to set up their own shoe store in the class-
room. They merged their prior experiences of their shoe store with
their field trip to a community shoe store. Just as importantly, the
knowledge gained from each primary experience became part of
0027-02/Glassman (p3-14) 5/8/01 12:43 Page 9
secondary experience as the children followed the natural mo-
mentum of their project.
This ability of the teacher to step back and simply facilitate,
rather than guide or mentor the children, can be an extraordi-
narily difficult task, especially as children grow older and adults
become more concerned with what students must know. Long
term projects, in a reflection of Dewey, focus on how students
can know.
Vygotsky’s Culture as Experience
Vygotsky takes a very similar approach to experience/culture. If
Dewey could have renamed his conception of experience as cul-
ture, Vygotsky might have renamed his conception of culture
as (Dewey’s) experience. Vygotsky recognizes two levels of cul-
ture, much the same way that Dewey sees two levels of experi-
ence. There is the culture that emerges through everyday con-
cepts, and there is the culture that emerges through scientific
concepts (Vygotsky, 1987). Everyday concepts, the result of every-
day activity, have much in common with primary experience. It
has the same “double barreled” nature in that it involves both ac-
tion and the motivation for action. Vygotsky (1987) carefully de-
fines activity as both the actions that humans take and the sub-
text of those actions, which are driven by desired consequences.
(Vygotsky took the idea of sub-text to action at least partially
from Stanislavsky’s works on training actors [Glassman 1996].)
Each true activity involves action and sub-text. Vygotsky does not
explicitly deny that rote habit and capricious actions have little or
no impact on the cultural development of the child, but his em-
phasis on subtext and motivation certainly imply this. (The re-
lationship between action and motivation would become one of
the central themes of A.N. Leontiev’s [1981] work on Activity
Theory.)
The relationship between action and consequence moves to the
internal plane of thinking over time. The individual builds this
relationship up through life experience. Such relationships are
based on specific historical circumstances. Thus a child in one cul-
ture (i.e., involved in one set of experiences) may see the action of
demanding attention from a social interlocutor as related to the
consequence of getting what she wants. A child from another cul-
ture may see the same action as leading to the consequences of os-
tracism or punishment. There are also subtle, within-culture vari-
ations in these relationships. It is this accumulated historical
experience that mediates all future activity. The thinking of in-
dividuals becomes reconstructed on the basis of new situations,
but this reconstruction is still based in the everyday history of the
individual.
Vygotsky’s Scientific Concepts as Secondary Experience
Scientific concepts (Vygotsky, 1987) is in many ways parallel to
Dewey’s (1925) conceptualization of secondary experiences.
Moreover, secondary experience is a complex, multi-level phe-
nomenon for Vygtosky. Part of the reason for this may be that it
plays a much more distinct, and possibly more important, role
in (vital) experience for Vygotsky than it does for Dewey. At the
center of Vygotsky’s secondary experience is his tool par excel-
lance, language. Vygotsky does not explicitly posit an individual
organizing principle for everyday experience. One is not really
necessary for a couple of reasons. First, while Dewey sees experi-
ence as focused on the solving of problems, Vygotsky (1978) sees
experience as emerging through direct communication between
social interlocutors and neophytes. At some points Vygotsky
(1997) suggests that true experience can only come from the in-
dividual’s own understanding of the world, but in his later, more
mature works he de-emphasizes the individual’s relationship to
the world, and emphasizes the relationship to the social system.
This is most clearly reflected in Vygotsky’s (1987, 1994) claim
that young children think in complexes. “The complex is founded
on factual associations which can be revealed through direct ex-
perience” (Vygotsky, 1994, p.220). The child at this stage does
not so much accumulate and reconstruct thinking as an indi-
vidual in building a body of knowledge, but accepts knowledge
gained through social intercourse. It is in many ways the social sys-
tem itself that serves as the organizing principle for accumulated
thinking, or knowledge. Vygotsky does not share Dewey’s pre-
occupation with individualism. In Vygotsky’s conception of sec-
ondary experience there is no need for the type of individual re-
flection (natural, immediate, and an integral part of activity)
explored by Dewey.
While language serves as an organizing principle for experience,
it does not have the same reflective qualities as Dewey’s secondary
experience. Language creates meaning within activity through
history rather than through individual reflection in the moment.
This does not mean that there is no vehicle for organization
through individual reflection in Vygotsky’s theory. Vygotsky sug-
gests individually generated organizing principles through the de-
velopment of scientific concepts (Vygotsky, 1987). However, sci-
entific concepts are more a goal of standardized education than a
natural part of the thinking process.
The zone of proximal development seems, in some ways, con-
cerned with establishing specific experiential/cultural tools that
will eventually serve the child in her social purposes. This is not
to say that interest plays no part in the zone of proximal devel-
opment. The mentor is dependent on the child’s interest for con-
tinued activity, but the mentor does not stand back and wait for
interest to emerge. In Saxe et. al.’s (1984) description of the re-
lationship between mother and child during the counting game
it is the mother who reaches for knowledge accumulated through
everyday experience with the child to use as teaching strategies (the
relationship between secondary experience and primary experi-
ence). It is the mentor who draws on the relationships between
primary and secondary experience to bring important social tools,
representing the seeds of mathematical scientific concepts, to the
child. Process is important, but not as important as drawing the
child closer to socially defined goals. Scaffolding (Wood, Bruner,
& Ross, 1976), a term often used in conjunction or in place of
zone of proximal development (e.g., Berk & Winsler, 1995), is an
appropriate description of this type of phenomenon. The mentor
builds a scaffold, piece by piece, so that the child can engage in un-
derstanding and development of scientific concepts on her own.
Experience/Culture and Development
For Dewey, the development of individually generated organiz-
ing principles begins very early in life, whereas Vygotsky ties
them closely to the development of conceptual thinking in ado-
lescence (1994) and suggests that it is best to wait for adolescence
to gear pedagogical strategies to the development of individual
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mastery (1987). While Dewey sees the difference between pri-
mary experience and secondary experience as relative (Campbell,
1995), Vygotsky seems to see the difference in more absolute
terms (at least over the course of an individual’s history). There is
a relationship between everyday concepts and scientific concepts,
but there are also qualitative differences and strict boundaries be-
tween complexive thinking and conceptual thinking. Complex-
ive thinking is based on categorizing objects solely on the basis of
the immediate situation, and conceptual thinking is based on a
more abstract understanding.
According to Vygotsky, the qualitative jump that humans
make in adolescence to conceptual thinking is based on the abil-
ity to use words and signs as internal mediators. The “functional
use of words and signs” helps the adolescent by allowing him to
take “charge of his own psychological processes” and “master the
flow of his own psychological processes” so that their activity can
be directed “for the purpose of solving the problems he is faced
with” (Vygotsky, 1994, p. 212). Adolescence is the first point at
which humans are able to use thinking to make true individual
judgments concerning their own activities. The development of
this conceptual thinking does not occur naturally through expe-
rience, but is dependent on specific types of social interactions
(Vygotsky, 1994). Vygotsky (1987) suggests the best style of social
interaction for the development of conceptual thinking is direct
pedagogy; the teaching of abstract ideas and problems “connected
with the process of growing into the cultural, professional, and so-
cial life of adults”(Vygotsky, 1994, p. 213). Thus, development of
the ability to analyze, hypothesize about,and test primary or every-
day experience is actually separated from everyday experience.
There are two points to be made here. The first is that Dewey
would certainly agree that human organization of primary expe-
rience is mediated through words and signs and that there is an
important relationship between the use of language and thinking
that emerges through experience (Dewey, 1925). But for Dewey
language is more an integral part of experience than a tool that
acts as a central organizing theme for experience. The second
point is that Vygotsky certainly sees a necessary relationship be-
tween experience that results from everyday activity and individ-
ual organization of that activity, especially the cumulative impact
of that experience on all subsequent thinking. But the develop-
mental aspect of his work suggests a qualitative break between
thinking and thinking about thinking that could not help but
seep into his conceptualization of education.
Human Inquiry
Both Vygotsky and Dewey see inquiry as based in progressive
problem solving. The individual is forced to confront issues that
are not easily reconciled by current thinking. Interest is the only
true motivation that can force this type of confrontation, push-
ing the mind from comfort into conflict. The only way to bring
stability back to the situation through activity is to reconstruct
thinking about activity so that it meets the needs of that situa-
tion. It makes little sense to define the development of thinking
or knowledge as a static, additive process. Thinking is something
to be used in situations to solve problems. Dewey is most adamant
on this point: The only use of thinking is the better living of
life. Vygotsky offers a similar, but slightly different perspective:
10 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
Thinking leads to greater social cohesion and the advancement
of the social group (Vygotsky & Luria, 1993).
For Dewey much of the action that we engage in during our
lifetimes is habit. That is, it is does not require conscious recogni-
tion of the relationship between action and consequences. This is
as it should be, because consciously thinking about the activities
with which you are engaged is exhausting and creates awkward-
ness in action (Dewey, 1922). Yet what allows life to progress,
what allows for better living, is what occurs when something goes
wrong, when our habits, for whatever reasons, break down. For
Dewey education is based in preparing the student not only to
face these moments of vital experience when habit is of little use,
but to actually desire them, and to enjoy them when they occur
(Dewey, 1916).
Humans, however, are comfortable in their habits. It is easier,
though less worthwhile, simply not to consciously engage in vital
experiences; or if it becomes necessary to actually solve a prob-
lem, not to pursue the next problem, especially if there are bar-
riers and/or obstacles. It is interest that drives the human being
from habit and into worthwhile vital experience. This is the rea-
son Dewey places interest at the center of the educational process
(Dewey 1900, 1916). Interest is not something that can be artifi-
cially created within the educational context, but must come from
the interaction between the person and the situation. There must
be enough interest so that the individual is able to recognize an
indeterminate situation and be motivated by the doubt inherent
in that particular situation, the proverbial “fork in the road”
(Dewey, 1920). There follows a process of reasoning whereby the
individual “works out” the problem through a series of stages
(Dewey, 1938).
Vygotsky also saw interest as a key to the educational process
(1997). Vygotsky speaks of the importance of instincts in educa-
tion, but in borrowing the term “instinct” he is not really talking
about hereditary animal instincts, but “has in mind the child’s
needs and the intimately associated realm of the child’s interests”
(Davydov, 1997, p. xxxii; emphasis in original text). “Interests are
an expression of the child’s organic needs” (Vygotsky, 1997,
p. 87). Vygotsky from a very early point saw interest as an inher-
ent characteristic of the individual, and perhaps the primary driv-
ing motivation in activity. This echoes Dewey’s view of interests
as children’s “native urgencies and needs” (Dewey, 1912, p. 23).
Interest for both theorists is intrinsic to the activity and natural to
the child. It cannot be created for the child from without. How-
ever, Vygotsky maintains a very broad conception of interests,
suggesting that in early childhood it is interest in mastery of the
immediate environment; in later childhood it is interest in ad-
venture, and in puberty “interest in oneself” (Vygotsky, 1997).
Vygotsky echoes one of Dewey’s ideas, stating, “In youth , one’s
eyes are always wide open to the world, which underscores the
greater maturity of youth towards life” (ibid., p. 88). Dewey sug-
gests that it is in youth that we are truly able to find interest in
things with an open awareness, and that we lose this openness as
we mature (Dewey, 1916).
Vygotsky’s broad conception of interest, however, means that
the social interlocutor can have far more control in developing
specific situations that are indeterminate for the neophyte (but
not for the mentor, thus giving the mentor a certain amount of
0027-02/Glassman (p3-14) 5/8/01 12:43 Page 11
directional control). The task is not so much in recognizing what
is of interest to the child and following through with it (as it is
for Dewey). It is in creating learning situations where the child
can recognize the possibilities of his or her own possible mastery
of the activity (moving the situation from indeterminate to de-
terminate) through interaction with the social interlocutor.
It may be in the area of inquiry that the differences between
long term projects and the zone of proximal development as ed-
ucational models are most apparent. The long-term project is
based on the idea that true doubt stems from interest. Dewey
(1938) sees doubt as the direct result of activity within an inde-
terminate situation (i.e., a situation that does not have an easily
recognized end-in-view). Initially, recognition of an indetermi-
nate situation requires a breaking of habits (which usually comes
about as the result of interest). The progressive problem solving
that follows is a natural outgrowth of vital experience that is no
longer moving in a determined direction for the actor. Key to the
educational experience is getting the student to recognize that
this cycle of interest-doubt-problem solving is beneficial and
worthy of pursuit. The more the child confronts interesting in-
determinate situations as the result of her own unique experi-
ence, the more confident she becomes in her own process of in-
quiry. This is especially important as activities become more
complex and there are difficult barriers between doubt and prob-
lem solving. The child develops a sense of discipline as a result of
prior success (Dewey, 1916; Glassman & Whaley, 2000).
A long-term project, even in toddlerhood, sets the child’s ac-
tivity on an important life trajectory. In the construction project,
described earlier, children followed through on their initial inter-
ests and made important discoveries. Through a series of ends-in-
view, a simple initial interest in a construction site was turned into
a complex construction site. The children developed a construc-
tion site playground far beyond anything the toddlers, or the
adults that surrounded them, could have initially comprehended.
The shoe project, with slightly older children, shows how com-
plexity of experience begins to enter into inquiry by creating bar-
riers that demand more disciplined problem solving. The initial
interest in shoes was so amorphous, and the possible directions
the activities could take so wide ranging, that maintaining the
momentum of the project was probably fragile on a number of
occasions. The balancing of interest and discipline in inquiry be-
comes a greater challenge for students and teacher as activities be-
come more complex, making long term projects more difficult to
manage. A complimentary methodology developed by the Reggio
Emilia schools in Italy uses documentation of the project (e.g.,
taking pictures of activities and products at various stages of the
project and showing them to the students at later, difficult junc-
tures to re- energize them) to maintain the activity (Rinaldi, 1998).
The use of documentation allows the teacher to breathe new life
into a project without controlling its context or direction.
The mechanism for the zone of proximal development reflects
the same type of doubt as outlined by Dewey (1938). There is a
problem in immediate activity that is beyond the reach of cur-
rent thinking. The problem causes doubt and the child is forced
to work through this doubt, and reconstruct thinking, in order
to complete the activity. The completion of the activity, achieve-
ment of the aim, potentially creates a new problem to be solved.
The emphasis is on dynamic progress rather than static abilities.
However, there are two important differences between Dewey
and Vygotsky’s thinking as far as education is concerned. The
first is that Dewey (1938) believes that doubt is discovered by the
individual in unique, naturally evolving situations. (Dewey ex-
plicitly states that the doubt must be the result of the situation it-
self.) Problems will necessarily emerge because situations change
and children (as well as adults) will be forced to confront them
through the natural momentum of activity (Dewey, 1916). For
Vygotsky the indeterminate situation is the plan and product of
the mentor. Doubt is not discovered by the individual, but sown
by the society through complementary actions of the social inter-
locutor. Related to this is Vygotsky’s idea that the social inter-
locutor takes an active role in guiding the thinking of the child
through the zone of proximal development. “In short, in some
way or another I propose that the children solve the problem
with my assistance” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). This can be done
through teachers’ offering of demonstrations that they ask their
students to repeat, or through presenting leading questions. In
any case the teacher is both guide and mentor.
The importance of the mentor/neophyte relationship for
human inquiry is shown in both examples of the zone of proxi-
mal development used in this paper. The adults interacting with
the infants and the mothers interacting with their children at-
tempted to create doubt through their own development of (a
series of) indeterminate situations. The adult/mentors also had a
firm idea of the possible direction(s) they would like the problem
solving to take once the doubt was sown. This is important be-
cause the problem solving was related to the type of problems the
children would have to deal with in the larger society later in life.
In Rogoff et. al.’s (1984) infancy study the adults knew the
problem the child needed to solve was how to use the jack-in-
the-box in a socially appropriate manner. The adults also under-
stood that in order to get the child to solve this social problem,
some type of doubt about a situation involving the jack-in-the-
box must be established, and that it was in some way incumbent
on them as adults to do this. “The adult managed the child’s in-
volvement with the toy even at the early ages” (Rogoff et. al. 1984,
p. 37). Thus, the adults “negotiate how and at what level the
baby was to participate in the means-end behaviors of winding
the handle to get Bugs Bunny to pop out of the jack-in-the-box”
(ibid, p. 38).
The relationship between the interest-doubt-problem-solving
cycle and social expectations is even more dominant in the (math-
ematics) conceptual issue task (Saxe et al., 1984). The adults in-
volved understand that the concepts they are helping their chil-
dren with are basic components they will need for later learning
of scientific concepts. The adults feel an obligation to take a strong
hand in both instilling doubt and the problem solving process that
follows it. Interest (and to a lesser extent discipline) while certainly
important, play secondary and, to a certain extent, decorous roles.
The socially created goal was of great importance for the mothers,
so much so that mothers of low ability children structured their
tasks differently than mothers of high ability children (instituting
a number of additional sub-goals). In both cases the mothers of-
fered directives to their children to get them as close to the pro-
posed goal as possible within the context of their abilities. Inter-
estingly enough Saxe et al. (1984) report that in initial unassisted
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performances children not only made errors, but actually “con-
ceptualize[d] the task quite differently than adults d[id]” (p. 22).
Nowhere was it even suggested that the children might gain more
by following through on their own conceptualizations of the task.
There are, I believe, important philosophical, political, and ed-
ucational reasons for the differences in how involved society should
be in a student’s inquiry in the educational process. Vygotsky
(1987; Luria, 1971) believed in grand social goals for the educa-
tional process that Dewey (1916, 1964), in many ways, disdained.
For Vygotsky “The new structures of social life—including the
industrialization of work activity, compulsory school and collec-
tive forms of everyday life—became seen as determinants of the
nascent forms of behavior and cognition of a ‘new man’” (Kozulin,
1990, p. 277). If more powerful tools can come into existence
through activity, then it is almost a moral obligation for the teacher
to act as mentor and establish the types of activities that will en-
gender these new tools. The mentor devises cooperative activities
that will allow the child to “acquire the ‘plane of consciousness’ of
the natal society” (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988, p. 30).
Conclusion
Dewey and Vygotsky are extraordinarily close on the importance
of everyday activity in the educational process. At the same time
they are miles apart on how and why that activity should be used
in the classroom. A careful consideration of the two theorists ex-
plodes the myth of a dichotomy between the individual and the
social in development; and yet Dewey is unrepentant in the de-
gree to which he promotes individualism, whereas Vygotsky sees
the social organization as the central agent of change.
This crucial difference between Vygotsky and Dewey might best
be explored through a chapter where Vygotsky (1978) discusses
the interaction between learning and development. Vygotsky ex-
amines three possible relationships between learning and develop-
ment: that processes of learning are independent of development,
that learning is development, and that learning and development
are “two inherently different but related processes” (ibid p. 81).
For Dewey it is education the drives development. It is a dy-
namic force in helping students to create their own primary ex-
periences that will lead naturally to the secondary experiences of
inquiry and the organization of knowledge. From an education
perspective there is little to be gained by getting the child to sim-
ply exhibit the required product of activity (Dewey, 1912). What
is important is the process, and the disposition of the child in ac-
tivity towards that process. This is especially true of the interest/
motivation for the activity; the desire to engage in an activity,
achieve an aim, despite obstacles and/or barriers (Dewey, 1916).
It is society, certainly, that provides the context and the imme-
diate, superficial motivations for particular activities. But ulti-
mately context and specific motivation are ethereal and not as
important to learning and development as the ability to harness
this motivation, so the very fact of interest becomes a motivating
force for problem solving over the entire lifetime, no matter what
the situation. This allows the child to grow into a human whose
subject is the “betterment of life” (for the self and the society),
rather than simply a member of a social group that is subject to
the needs of that group. The purpose of education is to teach in-
nately social animals to be individuals within a society. There is
12 EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER
a darker political side to Dewey’s emphasis on process. He be-
lieved that, ultimately, social and cultural groups establish goals
and end points for their own benefit. If you accept the social or-
ganization as the final arbiter for education goals, individuals are
forever trapped within that organization.
Vygotsky (1978) uses the zone of proximal development as an
alternative for his described three interactions between learning
and development. He sees learning as a tool in the developmen-
tal process. The process of learning allows the child to fulfill her
developmental potential. It is therefore important for teachers/
mentors to be a proactive force and take greater control in the ed-
ucational process, just as they would be a proactive force in the
use of any other tool (e.g., the teacher wields pedagogy just as the
builder wields a hammer). For Dewey the teacher is one of a
number of possible sieves that the social environment can pour
through in the general development of activity. That is why it is
important for teachers to take the less dominant, facilitator roles
exhibited in the best long term projects. For Vygotsky the teacher/
mentor uses the social environment to “build” activities that will
lead to mastery. Vygotsky might have joined some of Dewey’s
critics in seeing faith in process and free expression as naive in a
complex social environment. The society and the individual are
both more successful if education leads to individual and society
working together towards a greater good.
This general difference between Vygotsky and Dewey in the
relationship between the roles of process and goals in learning
and development highlights three important educational issues:
the role of social history as opposed to individual history in the
classroom; whether or not the teacher should take the general at-
titude of facilitator or mentor; and whether the source of change
is the individual or the social community.
Individual history and social history are both important in the
educational process, and it is sometimes difficult to separate the
two, but there are differences with important implications. The
difference between the two types of histories speaks directly to
the issue of diversity in the classroom. If the role of social history
is seen as preeminent then it is difficult to escape the importance
of shared historical artifacts in the classroom. This includes not
only language, but also childhood tools and symbols such as toys
and games. The greater the shared history the higher the level of
communication between teacher and students and between peers.
This is especially important for a model such as the zone of prox-
imal development where the mentor plays such an important
role in establishing indeterminate situations that will both be of
interest to the student and beneficial to the student’s role in the
larger society.
If individual history is emphasized, a diverse student popula-
tion (and even differences between teacher and students) is some-
thing to be consciously pursued, even at the expense of initial
communicative abilities. Rather than bringing in artifacts from
the outside world, teachers might be more inclined to concentrate
on the development of peer projects that lead to self-generated in-
determinate situations.
If clear communication is pursued and realized then the bur-
den for development of specific activities falls squarely on the
shoulders of the mentor(s). The mentor must find the right ques-
tions, the proper situations that will allow the students to achieve
0027-02/Glassman (p3-14) 5/8/01 12:43 Page 13
their promise. Dewey’s vision of the teacher as facilitator (1916)
is at once more distant and more immediate than Vygotsky’s
mentor. The learning situation develops through the natural so-
cial evolution of activity in the child’s life. The teacher’s role is
more distant in that there should be little control over content of
specific activities. It is more immediate because the teacher dis-
covers the doubt of indeterminate situations along with the child.
Dewey makes it very clear that the major task of education is
to develop an individual thinker out of a social being (1916).
Progress is made when the individual questions a social system she
no longer believes works. Dewey recognizes that the classroom is
an inherently social organization that is representative of the larger
social community. But the child must recognize herself as a viable
agent of change for that social organization. In order to do this
the student must realize that she has some element of control over
classroom activity. The fact that the classroom is made up of a
number of individuals with different social histories means that
agency for change is relatively limited. Individuals may desire to
take activities in directions they cannot go. This is perhaps the
most important of all educational experiences; it forces the indi-
vidual to reconstruct her thinking about the situation in order to
maintain even a partial role as agent for change.
For Vygotsky the classroom is also a social organization that
is representative of the larger social community. But instead of
the individual as agent for change in the social organization, it
is the social organization, and the larger social community, that
is the agent for change in the individual. The purpose of educa-
tion is to meld children into the larger social structure so that they
become productive members of the community. Change of the
larger social structure itself is historical and based on the cumula-
tive effort of the social group over time (Vygotsky & Luria, 1993).
Dewey and Vygotsky left a legacy of ideas that continue to in-
fluence educators in their attempts to create a better classroom.
At the core of this legacy is the importance of everyday activities
to all human beings. Whether it is the individual or the social or-
ganization that is the focus of educational strategies, educators
forget the power and importance of everyday activities and social
context at their peril.
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AUTHOR
MICHAEL GLASSMAN is Assistant Professor in the Department of
Human Development and Family Sciences, 135 Campbell Hall, 1781
Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43210; glassman13@osu.edu. His research
interests include child development and early childhood education.
Manuscript received February 7, 2000
Revision received March 5, 2001
Accepted March 7, 2001