Both academic attainment and student well-being are high priorities for schooling in Australia. While many programs are implemented in schools to promote either academic success or mental well-being, one program, the Philosophy for Children program claims to do both. This program is being widely implemented in Australian elementary schools. A quasi-experimental study therefore explored the effects of participation in a philosophical community of inquiry, a feature of the broader P4C program on Year 6 students’ reading comprehension, interest in math, self-esteem, (...) pro-social behavior and emotional well-being. It was found that reading comprehension increased. Interest in math and self-esteem decreased and there was no change in pro-social behavior and emotional well-being for children who participated in the COI program compared to students who did not participate. Implications for practice are discussed. (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)

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)