Pedagogical Praxis: The Professions as Models for Postindustrial Education DAVID WILLIAMSON SHAFFER University of Wisconsin-Madison In this article, I propose a theory of pedagogical praxis. Pedagogical praxis begins with the premise that under the right conditions, computers and other information technologies can make it easier for students to become active participants in mean- ingful projects and practices in the life of their community and suggests that pro- fessional practices such as architecture, mediation, and journalism can provide constructive models for helping students learn from such experiences. In this vision, new technology reinvigorates Dewey’s (1915) idea of linking school with society. Technology builds a bridge that allows young people to participate in the learning practices of professionals; in the process, they develop epistemological frameworks that organize the skills, habits, and understandings they need to thrive in a complex, postindustrial society. Although further work needs to be done to explore the processes through which such learning can take place, studies suggest that this perspective may be a productive avenue for continuing research. This article presents an overview of the theories and methods that inform such work. Dewey’s collected writings remain a classic and unsurpassed elaboration of the relationships among cognition, learning, technology, and citizenship in the context of the practical problems of teaching and learning (Dewey, 1915, 1938, 1958; Menand, 2001). However, Dewey’s work, written in an industrial era, cannot be applied directly to educational practice in an age increasingly marked by social and economic transformations of new tech- nology. Many leading philosophers and historians of ideas have wrestled with Dewey’s continuing relevance in the past 15–20 years in what has come to be known as a pragmatist revival (Menand, 2001). In this article I pro- pose a theory of pedagogical praxis that returns to the program that lies at the core of Dewey’s work to ask, in both a theoretical and practical way, the following questions: What would it mean if we took this program seriously today? What new relationships among learning, technology, and citizenship emerge if we ground educational practice in the postindustrial technologies of communication and information? What would such a program look like, and what would its implications be? Teachers College Record Volume 106, Number 7, July 2004, pp. 1401–1421 Copyright r by Teachers College, Columbia University 0161-4681