John Dewey and the ‘Orient’: Pedagogical Progress

The aim of this research was to find alternatives to modern/colonial educational philosophies, which have been central to sustaining the current hegemonic world order. To do so, it was necessary to interrogate how colonial narratives became embedded in educational structures and how education functioned as a key medium for disseminating the coloniser’s epistemologies. As notions of progress, civilisation, Westernisation, and modernisation have long shaped dominant educational aims, this thesis explores how modernisation reforms have served as vehicles for implementing and sustaining modern/colonial logic across different socio-political contexts.
Focusing on John Dewey and his visits to Japan, China, and Turkiye between 1919 and 1925, the research uses these cases to illustrate how educational modernisation intersected with coloniality. Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy influenced each country’s educational trajectory at distinct historical junctures, while the local conditions and ideological tensions in these societies simultaneously shaped his evolving perspectives on race and culture. Although Dewey’s early pedagogical practices reflected linear historicism and cultural hierarchy, his later concepts—particularly togetherness and knowledging—are revisited in this study as philosophical tools with decolonial potential.
This research also contributes to decolonial philosophies of education by placing Dewey’s lesser-studied concepts into conversation with epistemological decolonisation. Togetherness challenges cultural hierarchies by fostering relationality without centring the West, while knowledging critiques passive models of knowledge and promotes epistemic plurality. By positioning China, Japan, and Turkiye in relational dialogue, this thesis expands the decolonial framework beyond Latin America and the Global South, and calls for a reconceptualisation of educational futures grounded in intercultural understanding and epistemic justice.