Can Progressive Education Be Translated into a Progressive Idea?: Dewey’s Report on Turkish Education (1924)

• Main Author: Yasemin Alptekin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Association of Educators 2006-06-01
• Series: International Journal of Progressive Education
• Subjects: Progressive Education; Turkish Education; John Dewey
• Online Access: http://inased.org/ijpev2n2/alptekin.htm

John Dewey, who visited Turkey in 1924, prepared a report on Turkish Education in which he emphasized the importance of progressive education. The report was translated into Turkish. However, the translated version does not transform the idea of ‘progressive education,’ and the concept of ‘progressive’ education has hardly been discussed as a philosophical approach in Turkish education system, instead remained to be a term that has been interpreted with different corresponding words in Turkish at different times. This paper focuses on the discrepancy between the English and Turkish versions of the term “progressive” as a philosophy of education, and the implications Dewey’s report created in teacher education along with non-progressive practices in the field of education in Turkey.