Exploring the Intellectual Foundation of Technology Education: From Condorcet to Dewey

Since the colonial era, Western institutionalized education increasingly has been put into the service of civilization-building by seeking to advance practical industrial needs. But education has not always had such an explicitly economic orientation. In the early Middle Ages, the purpose of education was conceived of primarily in terms of advancing spiritual well-being, Church- or State-sponsored occupations, and socially “proper” forms of knowledge. Only as European nations embarked upon colonial expansion did education begin to become associated with citizenship, nation-building, practical and secular knowledge, and the advancement of a technological civilization and private enterprise. As a result, since the eighteenth century, this second school of educational thought has become increasingly dominant in educational thought and practice.