Dewey’s contribution to Giovanni Maria Bertin’s Ethical and Social Education

The aim of this essay is to present an analysis of Dewey’s contribution to Giovanni Maria Bertin’s Ethical and Social Education1. In it, the author intends to demonstrate that, on the basis of several of Bertin’s works, a pos- sible comparison can be made between the socio-pedagogical (and cultural) values in the active, democratic and militant education described by John Dewey in his logical and pragmatic approach and the socio-pedagogical (and cultural) values in the ethical and social education theory developed by Giovanni Maria Bertin himself, known as “Pedagogical Problematicism”. The premise is that both John Dewey and Giovanni Maria Bertin put their trust in substantive democracy, rather than in democracy as a purely representative and formal exercise. They both believed that a democratic way of life can be developed from infancy through “learning by doing” and practice (praxes), as well as through exposure to democracy in one’s daily life. Democracy, Education and Ethics, as they understood them, is respect for the other and one’s personal commitment, which must permeate through every role that all people play in different situations, contexts and in the different spheres of their public and private lives.