Skip to main content

Donald Schön

  • Chapter
Systems Thinkers
  • 5398 Accesses

Donald Alan Schön was a pre-eminent scholar of professional practice and learning. He is most celebrated for his work on the reflective practitioner and on organisational learning. He made significant contributions to the fields of education, management, urban planning, and design. His original intellectual home, however, was philosophy and throughout his career he regarded himself as a “displaced philosopher” (Waks 2001, p. 37). He wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the philosopher John Dewey's theory of inquiry, and as Sanyal (1998, p. 6) notes, “the Deweyian notion that all knowledge derives from practice remained at the heart of Don's formulation of the epistemological foundation of effective practice”.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 64.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Arendt, H. (1978). The life of the mind, vol. 1: Thinking. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Argyris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1974). Theory in practice: Increasing professional effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Argyris, C., & Schön, D. A. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bamberger, J. (2000). Unanswered questions. Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 7(2–3), 9–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Richmond, J. (1998). Donald Schön–a life of reflection. Journal of Planning Literature, 13(1), 3–5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sanyal, B. (1998). Learning from Don Schön–A tribute. Journal of Planning Literature, 13(1), 5–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schön, D. (1967). Technology and change: The new Heraclitus. Oxford: Pergamon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schön, D. (1971). Beyond the stable state: Public and private learning in a changing society. London: Temple Smith.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schön, D. (1984). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schön, D. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schön, D., & Rein, M. (1994). Frame reflection. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schön, N. (n.d.). Great reflective giraffe. http://www.schon.com/public/giraffe.php. Accessed 13 Jan 2009.

  • Smith, M. K. (2001). Donald Schön: Learning, reflection and change. The encyclopedia of informal education. http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-schon.htm. Accessed 13 Jan 2009.

  • Tomasko, R. M. (1997). In memory of Don Schön. Learning-org mailing list posting LO15112. http://www.learning-org.com/97.09/0301.html. Accessed 13 Jan 2009.

  • Verma, N. (1998). Donald Schön's reflection-in-action. Journal of Planning Literature, 13(1), 8–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waks, L.J. (2001). Donald Schön's philosophy of design and design education. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 11(1), 37–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Warsh, D. (1997). The giraffe. The Boston Globe, 28 December 1997, F1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weil, S. (1997). Obituary: Donald Schön: Tremors down the airwaves. The Guardian, 17 October 1997, 22.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 The Open University

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Ramage, M., Shipp, K. (2009). Donald Schön. In: Systems Thinkers. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-525-3_30

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-525-3_30

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-84882-524-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-84882-525-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics