John Dewey and the ‘Religious’ Work of Schools

This chapter explores John Dewey’s distinction between religion and the religious as a possible solution to the problem of neoliberalism. His understanding of the religious and its function within a democratic society and public schooling is explored. In Dewey’s notion of the religious work of schools, the erosion of democracy is its greatest religious threat. For Dewey, schools become more religious as they become more democratic. Dewey maintains that we come to a better world not because we come to the table and boil down our doctrines to what is common. Dewey has faith that in the process of coming together to communicate and struggle in associated living, we work toward a dynamic ideal. This is for Dewey the essence of democracy. Dewey was clear to exclude an ultimate source for a common ethic. Whereas theism finds this source in God as a supernatural being, Dewey finds the source in the relational interactions between humans and their environment—a natural piety that finds its expression and formation in the school’s educative work of social unity. Dewey calls this socially unifying work the religious work of the schools.