This article traces the development of the theory and practice of what is known as ‘community of inquiry’ as an ideal of classroom praxis. The concept has ancient and uncertain origins, but was seized upon as a form of pedagogy by the originators of the Philosophy for Children program in the 1970s. Its location at the intersection of the discourses of argumentation theory, communications theory, semiotics, systems theory, dialogue theory, learning theory and group psychodynamics makes of it a rich site (...) for the dialogue between theory and practice in education. This article is an exploration of those intersections, and a prospectus of its possible role in the formation and reformulation of school curriculum. It will be argued here that, when formulated as community of philosophical inquiry in particular, it offers the possibility of ‘philosophising’ the school curriculum in general, by extending the concept-work that doing philosophy entails to all of the disciplines. The article begins with an attempt at an operational definition of the term as, move to an analysis of its dynamics, offers an example of its use in a mathematics classroom, and finishes with a schematic view of its whole-curriculum and whole-school possibilities. (shrink)

This article sets out to examine the role of teacher research and enquiry in the professional development of teachers. The context derives from the initiative of the Scottish Executive to enhance the status and working conditions of teachers. We consider the extent to which continuing professional development activities arising out of the Chartered Teacher Programme encourage teachers to value research, equip them to become research-minded and support them to engage in research and enquiry in their own professional contexts.

Philosophy seems to have gained solid ground in the hearts and minds of educational researchers and practitioners. We critique Philosophy for Children as an experimental programme aimed at improving children’s thinking capacity, by questioning the concept of critique itself. What does it mean when an institutional framework like the school claims to question its own framework, and what is the consequence of such a claim for thinking, in education, philosophy and the child? Implications for the concept of critical thinking follow.

Recent years have seen educationalists turning to Emmanuel Levinas when considering the relationship between ethics and education. While it is true that Levinas never speaks of ethics in relation to the practice of classroom education, nonetheless, for Levinas, ethics is a teaching, and learning can only take place in the presence of the Other. This book considers how, within the constraints of the Irish primary school education system, teachers can develop a Levinasian approach to teaching, that affords both them and (...) the children they teach multiple opportunities throughout the school day to take up their ethical responsibility for each other as Other. Beginning from a Levinasian understanding of learning and teaching as constituting primordially relational and ethical events, and weaving the philosophies of Levinas, and the educationalists he inspires, into the approaches of philosophy with children, restorative practice, and PAX, this book suggests a unique approach to ethics in Irish primary school classrooms. The focus of this thesis, then, is on both the philosophical underpinnings that anchor teaching as a Levinasian, and a consideration of what practical approaches could be employed by the Levinasian teacher. (shrink)

This paper reports the findings of a predominantly qualitative study that explored the effects of the practice of Philosophy for Children on pupils’ affective engagement.[1] From its conception, the practice of P4C has been linked to the development of caring and collaborative thinking and the study aimed to closely consider that relationship. An appropriate self-designed P4C program was implemented with 75 Year 9 pupils of Religious Education at an independent secondary school in the United Kingdom. An interpretive research approach was (...) taken and thematic analysis was appropriated to analyse the data. Findings supported the claims of previous research that P4C can foster affective engagement in many pupils, particularly those pupils who find emotional expression and interpersonal interactions challenging. A tentative conclusion reached supposes that P4C has the potential to contribute to the affective engagement of pupils, but with the recommendation that implementing a P4C program must be executed carefully and with the mindfulness that it may not have the same potential or usefulness for all pupils universally. (shrink)

This article seeks to explore ways in which pre-college pedagogical resources – particularly Critical Race Pedagogy developed for high school students, as well as Philosophy for Children – can be helpfully employed by college level instructors who wish to dialogue with students about the nature of race and racial oppression. More specifically, we wish to explore how P4C can both learn from, and be put to the service of, CRP, and how this provides a useful framework for philosophical conversations about (...) race at the college and pre-college levels. Our arguments are interwoven with narratives of our personal experiences utilising these pre-college pedagogical resources in conversations about race, so as to illustrate and provide context for our claims. We ultimately contend that these resources can help pedagogues in both higher and lower education work toward unmuting the voices of undervalued and underserved students in the United States. (shrink)

Critical thinking continues to be viewed as a prerequisite skill for lifelong learning. It is not surprising therefore, that academic programmes delineate CT as a goal and a learning outcome. However, there are concerns regarding the extent to which the aims and objectives of the programmes are aligned with pedagogies for CT. Both the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and the Lebanese Baccalaureate Programme clearly delineate CT as a goal and a learning outcome. The study examines the facilitation of teaching CT (...) in the IBDP and LBP. The study was conducted in two schools located in Lebanon; one teaching the IBDP and the other the LBP. Semi structured interviews, questionnaires, and class visits were used to collect data pertaining to the teaching of CT in the two programmes in grades 11 and 12. The study is pioneering in studying the contribution of both programmes to the teaching of CT in Lebanese schools. (shrink)

In accordance with Progressivism, Matthew Lipman, introduced an educational model for renewal and change by means of the child. With his Philosophy for Children programme he wished to offer an alternative for the intellectualistic oriented education which silenced children. The answer to the search for freedom and change, Lipman finds in the symbioses between ‘Philosophy’ and ‘Children’. Philosophy expressed in critical thinking and communication, was the basis to emancipate the child from the oppression of the adult and to cause change. (...) According to Lipman the main purpose of philosophy is to free every individual from determination. This plea is being elaborated by dialogue. The main issue of our paper concerns the question whether Lipman’s alternative ‘Philosophy for Children’ can fulfil the promise of change and freedom. To answer this question we will investigate thoroughly where dialogue and change in Philosophy for Children stand for. Finally we will propose another perspective of dialogue. A dialogue stressed on listening. Listening to how the world appears to us and how we appear to ourselves. (shrink)

Curiosity, seen as a motive to do exploration within definite and generally accepted frames, is to be distinguished from wonder, where doubt about the frames themselves is the underlying factor. Granted this distinction, it will be argued that educational institutions need to build on both notions, i.e. wonder as well as curiosity.

The author, a specialist in philosophy for children who is recognized worldwide, presents the conceptual and philosophical framework within which the idea of early education in philosophical discussion is situated. A theory of education and its place in social and cultural development is the precondition to any practice aimed at doing philosophy with children.

In this paper I want to analyse the meaning of education for democracy and thinking as this is generally understood by Philosophy for Children. Although we may be inclined to applaud Philosophy for Children's emphasis on children, critical thinking, autonomy and dialogue, there is reason for scepticism too. Since we are expected as a matter of course to subscribe to the basic assumptions of Philosophy for Children, we seem to become tied, as it were, to the whole package, without reservation. (...) Following ideas of Hannah Arendt, I draw attention to the instrumentalised nature of Philosophy for Children and the loss of originality that this instrumentalisation means. This does not mean that I wish to abandon Philosophy for Children. The point is rather that I want to examine whether or not another kind of philosophy for children is possible. (shrink)

Philosophy for children is an educational movement that includes diverse goals that are not always clearly articulated by theorists and practitioners. In order to navigate the multitude of aims found in the philosophy for children literature I propose distinguishing between the following categories of goals: aims of education; educational goals of philosophy for children ; goals of a community of philosophical inquiry ; goals of the facilitator; and goals of the children. The definitions of these various types are given along (...) with some examples of how the distinctions between them can be of aid in understanding the approaches, criticisms, and practice of philosophy for children. (shrink)

Improvising involves participants adopting attitudes and dispositions that make them welcoming towards what happens, even when it is unforeseen. How is the discourse on improvisation and a disposition to improvise in the community connected to the concept of inquiry? What type of reasoning can be developed? This paper aims to reflect on two different perspectives. On the one hand, we consider the feasibility of improvising inquiry in the community, promoting inquiry as an activity that can be developed extemporaneously when teacher (...) and students form a community with an “improvising” habitus. On the other hand, we underscore the intrinsic improvisational dimension of inquiry that takes shape in philosophical dialogue in the community. To develop these two educational and formative perspectives, participants students and particularly teachers must first acquire a “readiness” for improvisation which is a sort of complex attitude. Some results of previous research on improvisation are presented to explain and emphasize the features of this complex disposition. Teachers who improvise suddenly open a window on events happening in the community, serving as an example for the class which is invited to do the same. Teachers thus become improviser-facilitators within the community, embracing the feature of a new jazz-pedagogy at the same time. (shrink)

Proponents of philosophy for children generally see themselves as heirs to the ‘Socratic’ tradition. They often claim too that children’s aptitude for play leads them naturally to play with abstract, philosophical ideas. However in Plato’s dialogues we find in the mouth of ‘Socrates’ many warnings against philosophising with the young. Those dialogues also question whether philosophy should be playful in any straightforward way, casting the distinction between play and seriousness as unstable. It seems we cannot think of Plato as representing (...) how to engage in dialectic, nor as prescribing a method for doing so. The irreducible textuality of the dialogues defeats any attempt to read them in this way. This is not to criticise the practice of philosophy for children: only to note the ambivalence and instability of the philosophical heritage that it wants to claim. (shrink)

Traditionally reasoning skills have been taught through written examples, often anachronistic or artificial. However, students use television as their major source of information about the world and as the source of basic understanding of the world. Yet we rarely provide students with the skills directly to criticize and analyze television's world view. This paper reports on a project designed to teach reasoning through the critical analysis of real television products. News presentation is shown to be influenced by the stereotypes and (...) oversimplification of the genre of soap opera, to the detriment of balance. (shrink)

The paper presents the theoretical and methodological aspects of research on the development of argument- ation in elementary school children. It presents a theoretical framework detailing psychological mechanisms responsible for the acquisition and transfer of argumentative discourse and demonstrates several applications of the framework, described in sufficient detail to guide future empirical investigations of oral, written, individual, or group argumentation performance. Software programs capable of facilitating data analysis are identified and their uses illustrated. The analytic schemes can be used to (...) analyze large amounts of verbal data with reasonable precision and efficiency. The conclusion addresses more generally the challenges for and possibilities of empirical study of the development of argumentation. (shrink)

During 2018 we started with two programs in Knin. One was a philosophy program with children as part of the project “Reading for Children” and another program of the “Philosophical cafe”. Both projects were funded from the state budget, the Ministry of Culture and the City of Knin. In the program of philosophy with children, we had the intention, in accordance with the program of the funded projects, to encourage reading practice among the youngest age groups. Therefore, we have directed (...) the method of philosophy with children in the direction of promoting reading using methods of developing critical and creative thinking. All workshops included talking with children about philosophical topics such as time, freedom, friendship, love, knowledge, existence, space, life, etc. The “Philosophical café” was organized with the support of a café A3, the National Library and the NGO Atribut. Financially we were also supported by NP Krka. It is held once a month where citizens can freely express their views on the topic. (shrink)

There is a paradox in the idea of philosophy for children. Good teaching starts from the concrete and particular, and it engages with each student’s individual interests, beliefs, and experiences. Preadolescents find this approach more natural than a more impersonal one and respond better to it. But doing philosophy involves focusing on the abstract and general and disengaging oneself from one’s personal interests and beliefs. It involves critiquing one’s attitudes, seeing abstract relations, and applying general principles. So, if good teaching (...) focuses on the concrete and personal, and good philosophy on the abstract and impersonal, how can there be good teaching of philosophy to children? I call this the paradox of philosophy for children, and in this paper I explore how teachers should respond to it. Should they sacrifice good teaching practice, adopting a heavily teacher-centred approach in order to correct their students’ natural biases? Should they lower their expectations of what philosophical skills children can acquire? Should they even attempt to teach philosophy to children? The paper will argue that there is a better option, which exploits children’s imaginative abilities. The core idea is that by encouraging children to imaginatively identify with other perspectives, we can use their natural focus on the concrete and particular to lever them into more abstract, critical ways of thinking. In this way, their focus on the concrete and personal can be the very means to get them to think abstractly and critically. The paper will go on to outline a general strategy for implementing this approach, the Scenario-Identification-Reflection method, which will be illustrated with examples drawn from the author’s own classroom practice. The paper will also respond to some objections to the proposed strategy and offer some general reflections on the SIR method. (shrink)

In order to begin to cultivate safe learning communities, serious social problems that manifest themselves in school settings and threaten its constituents need to be addressed. One such problem is bullying. Bullying is a type of peer aggression defined as unrelenting, willful and malicious physical or psychological abuse that results in physical or psychological harm to the victim, the bully and the bystander. Approximately 160,000 students stay home from school each day because they are afraid of being bullied, and an (...) estimated half a million students nationwide are marked absent every 30 days because of bullying. Thus, bullying clouds the school setting with fear and anxiety, which adversely affects a student’s ability to learn. (shrink)

Managerial values are abstract ideals that act as guiding principles for managing enterprises. Organizational identities connote the central, enduring, and distinctive features of an organization’s self-definition. There is a need to examine how and which managerial values are acted upon within developing country enterprises and how these values are reflected, projected, or disguised in the organizational identities of these enterprises. This special issue pays particular attention to how organizational identities respond to conflicting managerial values in the developing world, how values (...) work enables enterprises to adapt to environmental change, and the relationship between organizational aspiration and positive identities in developing world enterprises. (shrink)

The use of WhatsApp as a means of communication is widespread amongst today‘s youth, many of whom spend hours in virtual space, in particular during the evenings and nighttime in the privacy of their own homes. This article seeks to contribute to the discussion of the dialogical language and ―conversations‖ conducted in virtual-space encounters and the way in which young people perceive this space, its affect on them, and their interrelations within it. It presents the findings of a study based (...) on a community of philosophical inquiry in which young adults students discussed the ―I‖ and ―Thou‖ (the other) and the interaction between them in a WhatsApp community. The results evince that the youth related to the virtual space in very similar fashion to Buber‘s ―I-Thou‖ concept, the language they employed to describe what happened in it enabling an expansion of the conceptualization and research language to an ―I-Space-Thou‖ model. (shrink)

The study analyzes the theoretical basis of the Philosophy for Children (P4C) program elaborated by Matthew Lipman. The aim is, firstly, to identify the main philosophical and pedagogical principles of P4C based on American pragmatism, and to locate their pedagogization and possible problems in Lipman’s thinking. Here the discussion is especially targeted to the thinking of John Dewey and George H. Mead as well as Lev Vygotsky, whom Lipman himself names as the most pivotal sources for his own thinking. On (...) the other hand, the study aims at opening up new perspectives and thematizations on P4C from the viewpoint of the continental tradition of thought. The essential principles of P4C connected with reasonableness and judgment are ultimately interpreted as a neo-Aristotelian effort to contextualize philosophy by tracing it back to moderation, the man’s ability to consider and solve problems that he meets in practical life kata ton orthon logon — by doing right things in the right place at the right time in the right way. This phronetic idea of ‘humanizing modernity’ combined with the evolution of the adult-child concept is argued to be one of the conditions for the possibility of P4C, yet leaving unsolved the basic problems involving pedagogical action as such. John Dewey’s ideas arising from the critique of the modern philosophy of consciousness, focusing on the significance of philosophy in practical human life and linked to the basic nature of human knowing and intellectual growth and, further, to the ideal of a democratic community, are shown to form the main intellectual sources of P4C. Dewey’s philosophy as a general theory of education means a solid linking of the concepts of experience and inquiry to the practice of education. This is based on the naturalistic conception of man according to which man is built in dynamic transaction with his environment, experiencing the true meanings of his ideas in the consequences of his actions as he tries to solve problematic situations. So, inquiry as a method of reflective thinking forms the basis for education based on intellectual growth. A condition for it is a context meaningful for the child in which the paradigm of inquiry can be realized authentically. It is therefore important in education to provide circumstances that stimulate the child’s curiosity, initiating a process of inquiry that further enables, through the formation of reflective habits, the development of a democratic community. The purpose of the pedagogical interaction taking place in the process of inquiry is to produce educative experiences for the child, making the pedagogical relationship vanish at the same time. The idea is that in pedagogical action the child’s subjectivity, his desire and impulses are adapted to the tradition, yet generating at the same time a prospective, reflective habit, thus freeing the educatee to think intelligently for himself. The study shows the articulation of these principles in Lipman’s practical effort to convert the classroom into a community of inquiry, but it also argues that the above-mentioned Bildung theoretical core problem of pedagogical action, related to its paradoxical special characteristics to produce autonomous subjectivity, is not thematized. In connection with this issue, the educational thinking of Kant and Hegel is discussed especially from the viewpoint of philosophy teaching. To provide a new perspective for the discussion, the study outlines the community of inquiry as an ‘educative space’ from the viewpoints of the pedagogical relationship typical of hermeneutic pedagogy and of non-reflective functional structures and phenomena based on pedagogical intuition that are linked to it. (shrink)

While the concept of a community of inquiry based on dialogue is an integral part of philosophy for children, this concept is less prevalent in mathematics and science classes. In these subjects emphasis is usually placed on transmitting factual information as accurately and completely as possible. Children expect the teacher to tell them what the “right” answer to a question is, and teachers expect children to reproduce that answer. There is little opportunity for uncertainty, query and dialog. Discussions are often (...) conducted between individual students and the teacher, but not among the students themselves. This style of teaching generates a kind of pressure that many children find onerous. In addition, it encourages a vision of mathematics and science as fields of study that are highly abstract, detached from reality, and unfathomable. Pupils leave the classroom thinking that there is a predetermined right and wrong answer for everything in these subjects and no room for discovery. Therefore proponents of constructivist science education and philosophizing in science classes, and advocates of modeling activities in mathematics classes such as G. Kaiser and R. Borromeo Ferri, have proposed ways to enrich traditional classroom teaching in order to promote the active construction of knowledge by children and better conceptual understanding in science and math. Our paper presents an attempt to further this goal by philosophizing with children in the course of mathematical modeling exercises in a sixth grade math class. (shrink)

If Lipman’s claim that philosophy is the discipline whose central concern is thinking is true, then any attempt to improve students’ scientific critical thinking ought to have a philosophical edge. This chapter explores that position. -/- The first section addresses the extent to which critical thinking is general – applicable to all disciplines – or contextually bound, explores some competing accounts of what critical thinking actually is and considers the extent to which scientific thinking builds on, or is quite different (...) from, generic thinking. Evidence that traditional science education does not teach scientific thinking well leads to the conclusion that some different pedagogical approach needs to be added to science curricula. -/- The second section surveys several approaches to ‘minds-on’ science education, each of which shares an emphasis on the students identifying areas of puzzlement, rigorous discussion of these puzzles, attention to metacognition and opportunities to address thinking across different contexts. -/- Finally, a summary of the main conclusions is followed by consideration of possible objections and suggestions as to further research that could help to clarify and fine-tune the teaching of good scientific thinking in primary and secondary schools. (shrink)

In the world of Philosophy for Children, the word “method” is found frequently in its literature and in its practitioner’s handbooks. This paper focuses on the idea of community of philosophical inquiry as P4C’s methodological framework for educational purposes, and evaluates that framework and those purposes in light of the question, what does it mean to bring children and philosophy together, and what methodological framework, if any, is appropriate to that project? Our broader aim is to highlight a problem with (...) regards to the concept of method in P4C, and to question the consequences of that concept in the practice of philosophical dialogue with children. To better situate the concept of method within P4C, we will identify two different historical understandings—represented by Rene Descartes and Hans Georg Gadamer—of the concept, and suggest new possibilities for understanding philosophical practice with children in light of their difference. (shrink)

A nossa reflexão aborda o projeto de Filosofia para Crianças iniciado nos Estados Unidos da América por Matthew Lipman e Ann Sharp. Procuraremos refletir acerca das linhas de articulação entre as dimensões cognitiva e ética deste projeto, escolhendo como fio condutor a interrogação o que significa ser eticamente crítico? Pretendemos, assim, sistematizar algumas das ideias de Lipman e Sharp em torno do pensamento crítico, sobretudo nas suas implicações éticas.

Can Philosophy perform a useful function in contemporary society? This question is usually answered in the affirmative by philosophy teachers who point to the development of the mind as its most important tool, claiming thereby that this prepares students for entry into any profession. Over the years this answer has become less persuasive as students and academic administrators become more and more interested in courses which either train students for entry into a profession or add value to such training. The (...) advent of Philosophical Practice has attempted to remove this doubt concerning the instrumental uses of philosophy and what follows consists of an attempt to show how courses in Critical Thinking can be used to redress perceived short comings in students’ attitude and approach to learning. It focuses on the ‘culture of silence’ which describes the tendency of university students to shy away from intellectual conversations in the classroom and has been identified as a detrimental learner/graduate attribute in an African university and demonstrates how a form of critical thinking therapy can redress the problem. (shrink)

There have been concerns in higher education circles in Taiwan regarding students’ reluctance to participate in class discussion and their lack of ability to think independently about major societal issues. A government-funded study found that the main cause is students’ fear of “losing face,” and suggests a number of practical, culturally appropriate strategies for tackling this deep-seated problem, such as making student opinions anonymous and having students present group ideas instead of individual claims.

The article analyses the modern assimilations of the definition ‘dialog’ and its rendering by the world academic community. Attention is drawn to the exceptional empirical significance of dialogics as a general scientific universal. The etymology of dialogue as a key category of philosophical, educational and pedagogical knowledge is identified. The evolution of the lead notionalists` ideas about the kernel and nature of dialogue that are relevant of the humanity itself, human mind and constant search of true knowledge is studied. A (...) parallel is drawn between Socratic dialogue and dialogue in the postmodern educational and philosophic discourse. The problem of the antique thinkers` understanding of dialogue is studied discretely. The contemporary approaches to the fundamentals of dialogism, as outlined in the works of the lead theorists, are studied from the antiqueness to these days. It is highlighted how relevant and applicable for educational philosophy of the XXI century ‘G. Skovoroda`s dialogues’ are. It is ascertained that setting dialogue as autonomous subject of research of a particular school of thought reaches the works of L. Feuerbach with its thesis origins, but gets its final formulization in the works of M. Buber. The author dwells on the main theses of the approach of M. Bakhtin about the dialogic sources of the human beingness. The content and scope of the concepts ‘dialogical pedagogics’, ‘interactive dialogue’, ‘egalitarian dialogue’ are analysed. The advantages and disadvantages of the idea ‘knowledge building’ are studied. It is accentuated that the origins of many contemporary dialogue theories and methodologies date back to the ancient times and represent the attempts to integrate the ‘Socratic dialogue’ into the postmodern discourse. The state of adaptedness and conformance of the contemporary theories of dialogue to challenges of digitalisation and globalisation of the postmodern educational-philosophical space is studied. (shrink)

This research drew on the authors’ long experience in the implementation of the “_Hikmah_ Pedagogy” which is based on the Philosophy for Children’s teaching method. Specifically, the study examined the influence of the pedagogy on the participants’ perceptions of and feelings about their thinking and reasoning skills. The sample comprised 188 Malaysian and international students from an international secondary school in Malaysia. This consisted of students in four Grade levels, ranging from Grades 7 to 10. An instrument named “_Hikmah_ Feedback (...) Survey - HFS” was employed for data collection. The findings were supportive of the positive influence of the pedagogy on students’ abilities to think and reason better after experiencing the programme. Furthermore, the participants demonstrated a considerable improvement in their cognitive and social-communicative skills, as evidenced in the scores obtained for the post-programme’s test. This affirms the fact that the _ḥikmah_ pedagogy is highly recommended in Malaysia’s march towards its Vision 2020 developmental goals. Implications of the study were discussed and suggestions were proposed to educators and stakeholders in secondary school education. (shrink)

This paper aims to focus on certain aspects of two education methods: one initiated in the first half of the twentieth century by Maria Montessori, and the other in the second half of that century by Matthew Lipman. The aim – neither comparative nor analytical – is to shed light on the connections and, more specifically, the elements of the Montessori Method that reflect on Lipman’s proposal. The question this paper aims to answer is: can P4C find fertile ground in (...) schools applying the Montessori Method? The paper will focus, among other elements: on the importance to give space to thinking experience from childhood and on the recognition of the value of childhood. Both Lipman and Montessori have systematically observed children of different ages – the former in the first half, the latter in the second half of the twentieth century. Both characterized, gave value, and focused their scientific contributions on children’s ability to think and express their thoughts through languages. As educational researchers and professionals know, children have the ability to think, but such ability has not always been considered to exist. Even when it is evoked in words, educational choices and proposals seem – still today – to express mistrust towards children’s thought. The two mentioned authors have repeatedly highlighted the importance of an essential right: the right to think and to be given a space – even as children – to exercise thinking with others. In particular, both authors – though envisaging different educational paths – identified the same categories functional to exercising thinking. Their interconnection may guide the actions of teachers, educators, and learning process experts. In fact, P4C might play a role in educational contexts in which the class is already considered a community of inquiry, in which the teacher is assigned the same role as a facilitator. (shrink)

Human development requires the education of autonomous citizens, capable of critically approaching their opportunities. However, if this is left to the school alone, the children’s most important educational environment—the family—is neglected. The Community of Inquiry, developed by Matthew Lipman into an educational methodology, aims at educating students to be critical citizens by developing habits of mind through collaborative philosophical inquiry. The research reported here was targeted at introducing the COI into the family, particularly addressing the intersubjective relationships among participants. In (...) Uruguay, ‘Community Teachers’ visit disadvantaged homes to follow children’s progress and to increase the retention rates. Two Participatory Action Research activities were implemented in 2012 and 2016, in which sixty Community Teachers were trained in the COI methodology and applied it to their work with families. The observations made suggest the COI can support the promotion of human development from the very heart of the family. (shrink)

The ‘Marwa’ elementary school (pseudonym) – an Israeli public school on the border between Israel and the Palestinian Authority – is a unique educational institution in that, despite being not religious, it only accepts from Grade 1 through to Grade 6 girls. Several years ago, the principal decided to implement a Philosophy with Children (PwC) programme as an alternative pedagogy. This paper surveys how the educational faculty regarded the introduction of this curriculum and how it contributed towards the development of (...) philosophical discursive skills, a classroom atmosphere of friendship and caring, and critical and creative thinking competence amongst the students. (shrink)

The article presents an analysis of an extract from a Collective Philosophical Inquiry. Through this case study, we show the possible misunderstandings linked to the duality of two « worlds » : that of the teacher who experiments with CPI in her classroom and that of the researcher who is responsible for the design of this type of session. The « world » is defined as « conceptual, axiological and praxical background ». The confrontation between these worlds therefore questions both (...) the modalities of their necessary collaboration and the conditions of the construction and use of a true « professional genesis. (shrink)

Shifts in technology and ideology blur distinctions between people and machines, nations, and multinationals. Neoliberal economic policies in Mexico clashed with the national identity traditionally fostered by the official educational system. Calling for dialogue not imposed truths, historians rejected at tempts to align textbooks with the new agenda during a 3-year controversy. [Curriculum is] a specially constructed information system whose purpose, in its totality, is to influence, teach, train, or cultivate the mind and character of youth. —Neil Postman (cited in (...) Brosio, 1994, p. 243). (shrink)

This thesis concentrates on investigating the social construction of learning and teaching in a classroom that was encultured into working and acting as a community of inquiry across the curriculum. The theoretical and methodological premises of the study draw on sociocultural and sociolinguistic views on learning and instruction. Through this framework, the study aims at investigating the development, implementation and evaluation of the processes and conditions for communal inquiry across different pedagogical situations and across the curriculum in the case study (...) classroom. In addition, the study aims at creating a pedagogical rationale for supporting meaningful, student-centred and problem-based learning in classroom. The research project was realised as a series of qualitative case studies. The subjects of the study were seventeen third-grade students from a Finnish elementary school and their teacher. The empirical data corpus consists of nine hours of videotaped classroom sessions gathered from the domains of philosophy, science and mathematics. Detailed, micro- and multilevel analyses were completed on the transcribed video recordings of whole classroom interaction. The results of the research project indicate that social interactions in the case study classroom were quite dominantly characterized by multilateral interactions amongst classroom members. Instead of mere information exchange, the nature of knowledge in this classroom was largely based upon sharing and defining views as well as negotiating evidence. In general, the students in this classroom clearly took charge of the cognitive work whereas the teacher’s responsibility was more directed towards managing the interactional practices during the joint discussions. However, there were occasions when the teacher stepped in as an analytic authority. The teacher scaffolding was grounded in the on-going interactions and varied in both quantity and quality whilst engaging in dialogue with individual students demonstrating different participation modes. Overall, the results of the study indicate that teacher scaffolding in this classroom supported communal inquiry from both the cognitive, social and socio-emotional perspectives. (shrink)

In the following pages, I make an argument on behalf of “wisdom education,” i.e., an approach to education that emphasizes the development of better thinking skills as well as socialization and the development of students’ sense-of-self. Wisdom education can best be facilitated through dialogical interactions that encourage critical reflection and modification of one’s presuppositions. This account presupposes that wisdom is given to dialectical forces. While the paper is primarily theoretical, it touches upon my work as a teachers’ educator, which almost (...) always utilizes dialogical pedagogies in the belief that these pedagogies are potent platforms for better learning and thinking and thus are more meaningful and transformative. (shrink)

This study explored the impact of facilitating collaborative philosophical inquiry, in the tradition of “Philosophy for Children,” on connectedness pedagogies. The study employed an experimental design that included 59 primary teachers in 2 groups. The experimental group received an intervention that comprised training in CPI and the comparison group received training in Thinking Tools, a subset of the CPI training. Lessons were coded on four variables of connectedness pedagogies, across the two groups, at three time-points. Teacher interviews were conducted to (...) gather participants’ perspectives. Between-groups analysis of variance on particular measures of pedagogy revealed that CPI significantly broadened teachers’ pedagogical repertoires, in ways that included drawing on students’ background knowledge and preparing a problem-based curriculum which connects students to the world beyond the classroom. (shrink)

In this paper, I define exploratory talk and explore a number of examples that were analyzed using the dataanalytic coding rules delineated by Soter et al.. Then, I propose expanding the rules for exploratory talk outlined by Soter et al. and suggest coding facilitator utterances as substantive contributions to the dialogue not intrusive interjections to the discourse. I argue that this approach recognizes the facilitator as an equal participant in the dialogue who is positioned to model good inquiry, cultivate shared (...) possession of the discourse and redistribute power amongst participants. I suggest that a possible mechanism for realizing these goals is an instructional pedagogy that is participatory, liberatory, democratic and critical, such as P4C, which is defined by a community committed to intersubjective interaction and the productive evolution of ideas. (shrink)