Education as Social Reproduction or Transformation

Dewey examines how the plasticity of youth is exploited by adults to impose existing customs, but argues true education should foster inquiry, experimentation, and the ability to reshape social conditions.

Dewey discusses how infants' impulses are educated by adults with formed habits, and how this process can either reproduce or transform existing customs.

Critiques education that instills 'moral' habits without understanding, contrasting it with growth-oriented learning.

Dewey presents education of the young as the chief means of continuous, graded, economical improvement and social rectification, while criticizing existing schooling as a tool of nationalistic and economic regimes.

The plasticity of impulse in youth is implied; the chapter discusses how social conditions shape the expression of impulses, which has implications for education.