Reconstructing Deweyan Progressivism through the Epistemology of Cultural Hybridity: Toward a Hybrid Historical Pedagogy Theory

Abstract

Contemporary culturally plural societies challenge Deweyan progressivism to explain how educational knowledge is constructed through intercultural encounters, multiple identities, and historically situated experiences. Although intercultural and postcolonial educational theories have addressed cultural difference, hybridity, and epistemic plurality, cultural hybridity has rarely been theorised as an epistemological condition connecting educational experience, historical interpretation, and educational purpose. This study therefore asks how Deweyan experience can be reconstructed for culturally hybrid educational contexts and how cultural hybridity and historical consciousness can be integrated into a coherent educational theory. Employing philosophical inquiry, conceptual analysis, and theory synthesis, the study examines the ontological, epistemological, and axiological assumptions of Dewey, Bhabha, Rüsen, and contemporary philosophy of education; deconstructs the concepts of experience, cultural hybridity, historical consciousness, and educational purpose; and reconstructs their relationships into Hybrid Historical Pedagogy Theory (HHPT). The analysis identifies Hybrid Experience as culturally negotiated experience, Hybrid Epistemology as a condition of knowledge construction, and Historical Consciousness as the mediating process connecting experience and educational meaning. These relationships are articulated through the HERITAGE Model, comprising Hybrid Experience, Historical Interpretation, Historical Consciousness, Inclusive Identity and Democratic Agency, Generative Knowledge, and Moral Ecology. HHPT thus offers a conceptual reconstruction that extends the explanatory scope of Deweyan progressivism rather than replacing existing intercultural or postcolonial theories.