The Philosophical Ethics in Early Childhood project aims to advance knowledge of preschool children’s ethical understanding and explores the effectiveness of philosophical discussion of children’s literature and extension activities for fostering ethical development in early childhood. In this article we discuss results of our ethics education study with preschool children, including pre-post measurement of experimental and control groups and a 12-week educational intervention focusing on the themes of fairness, empathy, personal welfare and inclusion versus exclusion of peers. As compared to (...) our control group, study results demonstrated significant developments in our experimental group’s ability to respond to ethical questions, increased use of emotion markers, and increased use of justification terms in support of responses. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to offer a critical evaluation of the role of liberation philosophy in developing communities of inquiry. The article is divided into three sections. In the first, we examine the relationship between liberation philosophy and liberation pedagogy. The second section focuses on a discussion of relationships between liberation pedagogy, communities of inquiry and the teaching of philosophical thinking. Finally, we discuss what we regard as some of the challenges of liberation pedagogy and outline future directions (...) for research and practice. While a number of scholars have offered radical critiques of education and schooling, this article considers the work of Paulo Freire as expressed in what is perhaps his best-known book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (shrink)