DFE
Department of Formative Education
DFE
Department of Formative Education
An unprecedented venture in American higher education, the Department of Formative Education (DFE) is devoted to the interdisciplinary exploration of questions at once perennial and pressing: How do we educate whole persons for meaningful lives? How do we cultivate community? How do we nurture vision and values? In DFE, faculty conduct groundbreaking research on the cultivation of character, the expansion of imagination, and realization of purpose.
We propose that:
Anthropology and cultural psychology help us think globally about human development, asking:
The learning sciences and developmental technologies expand our conception of where, what, and how we learn, inviting us to:
The formative humanities explore the existential and normative dimensions of educational experience:
We seek to create spaces that:
The Formative Leadership Education team is committed to nurturing organizational capacity and fostering a culture that promotes holistic formation in schools and educational systems, to establish and support relational networks that drive meaningful learning experiences.