Reconstructing the public praxis of University Social responsibility from the perspective of ‘Education as life itself’: A Deweyan educational-philosophical reinterpretation

Contemporary higher education increasingly organizes public engagement through policy instruments such as competitive funding, reporting requirements, performance indicators, and outcome evaluation. In Taiwan, University Social Responsibility (USR) is therefore not an educational practice that exists prior to policy mediation and is only subsequently distorted by performativity; its institutional form is constituted through such mechanisms. Using Taiwan’s Higher Education Sprout Project as a critical policy case, this article examines the tension between the administrative legibility of university–community engagement and its educational significance. Drawing selectively on Foucault’s account of governmentality, Lyotard’s analysis of performativity, and Dewey’s educational philosophy, the article argues that accountability mechanisms do more than measure USR: they also shape what can count as responsible, successful, and visible university action. Dewey is reconstructed not as an ahistorical corrective standing outside contemporary governance, but as a historically situated normative resource for examining the educational consequences of policy-mediated engagement. Particular attention is given to continuity of experience, inquiry and problem formation, democratic association and communication, and public consequences and responsibility. The article’s contribution therefore lies not in opposing a ‘good’ Deweyan logic to a ‘bad’ performative logic, but in using Deweyan educational philosophy to interrogate the educational possibilities and limits internal to policy-mediated public engagement. The analysis concludes that USR should be evaluated not only by demonstrable outputs, but also by whether institutional arrangements sustain further inquiry, permit problems to be redefined through experience, distribute meaningful participation, and enlarge responsibility for shared public consequences.