The ‘community of inquiry’ as formulated by CS Peirce is grounded in the notion of communities of disciplinary-based inquiry engaged in the construction of knowledge. The phrase ‘converting the classroom into a community of inquiry’ is commonly understood as a pedagogical activity with a philosophical focus to guide classroom discussion. But it has a broader application, to transform the classroom into a community of inquiry. The literature is not clear on what this means for reconstructing education and how it translates (...) into schooling practices. Integral to the method of the community of inquiry is the ability of the classroom teacher to actively engage in the theories and practices of discipline-based communities of inquiry so as to become informed by the norms of the disciplines, not only to aspire to competence within the disciplines, but to develop habits of self-correction for reconstructing those same norms when faced with novel problems and solutions, including those in the classroom. (shrink)

In this paper we are interested in the connections between Philosophy for Children and character education. In sketching these connections we suggest some areas where the relationship is potentially fruitful, particularly in light of research which suggests that in practice schools and teachers often adopt and mix different approaches to values education. We outline some implications of drawing connections between the two fields for moral education. The arguments made in this article are done so in the hope of encouraging further (...) critical reflection on the potential relationship between Philosophy for Children and character education. (shrink)

Research seems to be explicit on children’s benefit from parent’s participation in their schooling. The ways, though, parents can be involved are not yet apparent. A variety of educational strategies and programs are being tested globally in order to enhance the collaboration of the school with the family. Through Action Research, the effectiveness of an initiative of cooperation with the parents in a kindergarten school in Athens has been explored, during the School Years 2014-15 and 2015-16. The successful engagement of (...) philosophical practices for the students in previous years exposed the need for adopting the specific tool of Philosophy for Children for the community of parents. Carefully selected stories have been used as a stimulus for raising philosophical questions that were analysed in depth by parents and teachers. The creation of a philosophical community of inquiry with parents within school, revealed a new horizon of communication and cooperation while raising respect and empathy among all participants. This research exhibits that building communities of philosophical inquiry with children and adults likewise, and within the same environment reflects and strengthens dialogue between all parts of the school community triangle and it therefore seems to be an effective approach to be implemented. (shrink)

In the past decade well-designed research studies have shown that the practice of collaborative philosophical inquiry in schools can have marked cognitive and social benefits. Student academic performance improves, and so too does the social dimension of schooling. These findings are timely, as many countries in Asia and the Pacific are now contemplating introducing Philosophy into their curricula. This paper gives a brief history of collaborative philosophical inquiry before surveying the evidence as to its effectiveness. The evidence is canvassed under (...) two categories: schooling and thinking skills; and schooling, socialisation and values. In both categories there is clear evidence that even short-term teaching of collaborative philosophical inquiry has marked positive effects on students. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research and a final claim that the presently-available research evidence is strong enough to warrant implementing collaborative philosophical inquiry as part of a long-term policy. (shrink)

It is twelve years since the article you are about to read was published. During that time, the philosophy in schools movement has expanded and diversified in response to curriculum developments, teaching guides, web-based resources, dissertations, empirical research and theoretical scholarship. Philosophy and philosophy of education journals regularly publish articles and special issues on pre-college philosophy. There are more opportunities for undergraduate and graduate philosophy students to practice and research philosophy for/with children in schools. The Ontario Philosophy Teachers Association reports (...) that in English-speaking Canada there are over 28,000 senior high school students studying philosophy in over 440 schools, and philosophy is now a Teachable Qualification. In the USA, the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization was founded in 2009 to create a network of pre-college philosophy teachers. With the loss of its founders—Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp and Gareth Matthews —the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children is developing a digital archive in P4C. My original article was inspired by the design and pilot of a new philosophy elective for the Victorian Certificate of Education. This initiative garnered considerable interest from the P4C community because many believed that the decision to offer a VCE philosophy elective reflected the effectiveness and popularity of P4C in elementary schools, and the new philosophy elective would establish P4C as an essential prerequisite for the study of philosophy in senior secondary school and at university. In my view, enthusiasts overlooked an important difference in the conception of philosophy informing the new philosophy elective: it introduced students to the theoretical or academic discipline of philosophy, whereas P4C conceived of philosophy as a wisdom tradition—otherwise known as the art of living. (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)

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)

This article explains how teachers might navigate inquiry learning despite the experience of a constant tension between abandoning their students and controlling them. They do this by conceiving of themselves as guides who decide the path with students, not for them. I build on a conception of teaching as guiding from Burbules, and argue that inquiry teachers should take the particular stance of an expedition-educator (rather than the stance of either a tour-leader or an expedition-leader). They should guide students to (...) make progress during co-inquiry, rather than leading them to follow the teacher’s agenda. This stance gives a heuristic they can use to balance control and abandonment in their pedagogical practice—they judge which pedagogical actions to take, and when, according to which actions are likely to help their students to engage in autonomous inquiry and hence learn to guide themselves. Students thus can learn to inquire by participating in an inquiry which is guided, but not controlled, by their teacher. (shrink)

Participatory approaches to environmental decision making and assessment continue to grow in academic and policy circles. Improving how we understand the structure of deliberative activities is especially important for addressing problems in natural resources, climate change, and food systems that have wicked dimensions, such as deep value disagreements, high degrees of uncertainty, catastrophic risks, and high costs associated with errors. Yet getting the structure right is not the only important task at hand. Indeed, participatory activities can break down and fail (...) to achieve their specific goals when some of the deliberators lack what we will call participatory virtues. We will argue for the importance of future research on how environmental education can incorporate participatory virtues to equip future citizens with the virtues they will need to deliberate about wicked, environmental problems. What is the role of education for deliberative skills and virtues relative to other aspects of environmental education, such as facts and values education? How important is it relative to careful design of the deliberative process? What virtues really matter? (shrink)

Etičko obrazovanje, kao vrsta filozofskog obrazovanja, danas postaje sve aktualnije. Nastava filozofije nije samo razvoj duha nego i put ka samosvijesti i svijesti o ljudskoj dužnosti. Etičke spoznaje i osjećaji osnova su za ljudski, moralni i intelektualni razvoj ličnosti. Mlada ličnost se u susretu s etičkom problematikom i sadržajima uklapa u realnost svijeta kao ljudsko djelo. Kroz etiku ona uspijeva spoznati da je ličnost kontinuitet, ali i progres; da je ličnost dio svoje male zajednice, ali i sastavnica cjeline svijeta. Etičko (...) obrazovanje zanima se za to kako čovjek postaje etička ličnost, jedinka koja slobodno sudi, gradi i razvija moral; što je sadržaj moralne izgradnje ličnosti te koji su stadiji kroz koje ličnost prolazi na tom složenom putu samoizgradnje, od nesvjesnog bića ka biću koje svjesno gradi dobar svijet, ispravne etičke vrijednosti i moralne principe. Dakle, zadatak nije samo stvaranje moralne ličnosti kao jedinke koja »provodi« moral nego je zadatak stvoriti i etički subjekt, tj. ličnost koja slobodno i odgovorno razmišlja i sudi, koja gradi i razvija moral te nove moralne norme. Iz tog je razloga nužno uvođenje kolegija etičkoga obrazovanja u nastavu na sve tri obrazovne razine. Nowadays, the ethics education, as a type of philosophical education, is becoming increasingly important. Philosophical education concerns itself with the development of spirit, and with both the development of self-awareness and the awareness of our duties. Ethical insights and feelings are basis for human moral and intellectual growth. Young person becomes a part of the reality of the world through her encounter with ethical issues and contents. Ethics helps in gaining knowledge on the continuity of the concept of person, as well as awareness of its progressive nature. Ethics also aids in realization that person is a part of a particular community but that s/he also participates in human community in general. Ethics education is interested in questions like: how a man becomes an ethical personality, an individual with the freedom of thinking, judging, and acting morally; what is the content of the moral development and what are the stages of that complex process of self-growth from the unreflected being towards the being who consciously deals with ethics values and moral principles. The aim of ethics education is not only the creation of a moral person who merely acts on moral principles, but who is also an ethical subject, i.e. who thinks and acts freely and responsibly, builds and develops moral and creates new moral norms. Thus it is necessary to introduce ethics education in the curricula on all levels of education. (shrink)

It can hardly be denied that play is an important tool for the development and socialisation of children. In this article we argue that, through dramaturgical play in combination with pedagogical tools such as the Community of Inquiry (CoI), in the tradition of Philosophy for Children (P4C), students can creatively think, reflect and be more aware of the impact their gestures (Schmid 2000b) have on others. One of the most fundamental aspects of the embodied human life is human interaction that (...) is based on expressions, what Schmid calls gestures. Through self-reflection, one’s set of gestures can be developed into a deliberate ‘life-performance’; a conscious, selected and coherent work of art (Schmid, 2000b, p. 332). Drawing on Nietzsche’s idea of living artistically, we explore how Schmid’s philosophy of the art of living, P4C and the liberal arts, with a focus on drama education, can work together to develop (self-) reflective, reasonable citizens who are able to develop their own art of living while respecting and supporting the development of the good and beautiful life of others. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the notion of ‘reasonableness’ that is, for many, at the heart of the Philosophy for Children approach particularly and education for democratic citizenship more broadly, is constituted within the epistemology of ‘white ignorance’ and operates in such a way that it is unlikely to transgress the boundaries of white ignorance so as to view it from without. Drawing on scholarship in critical legal studies and social epistemology, I highlight how notions of reasonableness often include (...) consensus, ‘racialised common sense’ and the ‘typical’ view. In addition the promotion of particular dispositions on the grounds of ‘reasonableness’ both promotes stability and limits how one may think otherwise. Thus, P4C practices that fail to historicise, examine and challenge prevailing notions of reasonableness establish an epistemically ‘gated’ community of inquiry. (shrink)

The ‘community of inquiry’ as formulated by C. S. Peirce is grounded in the notion of communities of discipline-based inquiry engaged in the construction of knowledge. The phrase ‘transforming the classroom into a community of inquiry’ is commonly understood as a pedagogical activity with a philosophical focus to guide classroom discussion. But it has a broader application. Integral to the method of the community of inquiry is the ability of the classroom teacher to actively engage in the theories and practices (...) of discipline-based communities of inquiry so as to become informed by the norms of the disciplines, not only to aspire to competence within the disciplines, but also to develop habits of self-correction for reconstructing those same norms when faced with novel problems and solutions, including those in the classroom. This has implications for science education and the role of educational philosophy in developing students' ability to think scientifically. But it also has broader implications for thinking critically within all key learning areas. Here we concentrate on science education. We present the parallels between philosophical inquiry and scientific inquiry that need to be realised to promote and engage with scientific inquiry in the classroom. We also discuss the conflicts between philosophical inquiry and the way inquiry science in the classroom is portrayed in the education literature. Based on philosophical and historical perceptions of science as inquiry, a practical approach to implementation of scientific inquiry in the science classroom is presented. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to highlight significant developments in the history of philosophy in schools in Australia. We commence by looking at the early years when Laurance Splitter visited the Institute for the Advancement for Philosophy for Children (IAPC). Then we offer an account of the events that led to the formation of what is now the Federation of Australasian Philosophy in Schools Associations (FAPSA), the development and production of a diverse range of curriculum and supporting materials for philosophy (...) in schools, the making of the Australasian journal, and more recent events. Our purpose is to create further interest in exploring this complex and rich history. This will achieve a better understanding of the possible future directions for classroom practice and research. (shrink)

This inaugural handbook documents the distinctive research field that utilizes history and philosophy in investigation of theoretical, curricular and pedagogical issues in the teaching of science and mathematics. It is contributed to by 130 researchers from 30 countries; it provides a logically structured, fully referenced guide to the ways in which science and mathematics education is, informed by the history and philosophy of these disciplines, as well as by the philosophy of education more generally. The first handbook to cover the (...) field, it lays down a much-needed marker of progress to date and provides a platform for informed and coherent future analysis and research of the subject. -/- The publication comes at a time of heightened worldwide concern over the standard of science and mathematics education, attended by fierce debate over how best to reform curricula and enliven student engagement in the subjects There is a growing recognition among educators and policy makers that the learning of science must dovetail with learning about science; this handbook is uniquely positioned as a locus for the discussion. -/- The handbook features sections on pedagogical, theoretical, national, and biographical research, setting the literature of each tradition in its historical context. Each chapter engages in an assessment of the strengths and weakness of the research addressed, and suggests potentially fruitful avenues of future research. A key element of the handbook’s broader analytical framework is its identification and examination of unnoticed philosophical assumptions in science and mathematics research. It reminds readers at a crucial juncture that there has been a long and rich tradition of historical and philosophical engagements with science and mathematics teaching, and that lessons can be learnt from these engagements for the resolution of current theoretical, curricular and pedagogical questions that face teachers and administrators. (shrink)

This qualitative research study examines moral responsiveness and thinking in a mixed gender class of primary school children over a period o f four and a half years. It sets out to track development in children’s moral awareness, looking at gains and losses from middle to late childhood, and focusing on cognitive skills, notions of moral rectitude, and interpersonal relationships and friendship. The first part of the study is designed to offer a theoretical background to inform interpretation of the data (...) in the second part. It examines major issues in morality and moral education in the context of significant recent debates across several disciplines, including developmental psychology, philosophy, sociology and education; it also offers a theoretical perspective on children’s ability to think together about morality in a community of enquiry and on related issues of pedagogy. Through interpretation of transcripts, the second part o f the study analyses the children’s thinking, in response to a wide range of content, on issues of justice, freedom and responsibility, rights and duties, inclusiveness, and friendship. Gender differences, most notably the reticence of girls to express themselves in a mixed gender group after about age ten, are also examined. The study demonstrates how, through participation in a community of ethical enquiry such as Thinking Time - Philosophy with Children, children become more thoughtful and develop respect and responsiveness to others as well as other traits of character that are central to democratic citizenship. (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 this paper, I introduce the narrow-sense and wide-sense conceptions of the community of inquiry (Sprod, 2001) as a way of understanding what is meant by the phrase ‘converting the classroom into a community of inquiry.’ The wide-sense conception is the organising or regulative principle of scholarly communities of inquiry and a classroom-wide ideal for the reconstruction of education. I argue that converting the classroom into a community of inquiry requires more than following a specific procedural method, and, therefore, that (...) the wide-sense conception must inform the narrow-sense community of inquiry, as it provides the pedagogical guidelines for classroom practice. This is followed by a discussion on the dual role of the teacher as facilitator and co-inquirer in mediating between the two conceptions of the community of inquiry. Finally, I look at three different interpretations of John Dewey’s educational theory and practice that underpins philosophy for children. I conclude that without an understanding of the relationship between the two conceptions of the community of inquiry to guide the larger aims of an education that supports democratic ways of life, the teacher’s role remains unclear. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the importance of wonder in human flourishing and is orientated towards the dynamics between the two, but with an emphasis on how the former is important for illuminating the latter. It begins with a preliminary sketch of both wonder and human flourishing and subsequently moves on to highlight three aspects of human flourishing: 1) ‘Individuality’, 2) ‘Relations’ and 3) ‘The political’, and why these play to wonderment.

We provide a Camusian/Peircean notion of inquiry that emphasises an attitude of fallibilism and sustained epistemic dissonance as a conceptual framework for a theory of classroom practice founded on Deep Reflective Thinking (DTR), in which the cultivation of collective doubt, reflective evaluation and how these relate to the phenomenological aspects of inquiry are central to communities of inquiry. In a study by Fynes-Clinton, preliminary evidence demonstrates that if students engage in DRT, they more frequently experience cognitive dissonance and as a (...) result improve their ability to engage in further and more frequent DRT. Sustained intellectual progress occurs when the inquiry reaches a point whereby students can thoughtfully move between the position of disequilibrium (doubt) and equilibrium (belief) whilst understanding the impermanency of any fixed belief, which, in turn, enables reconstruction of thinking and appropriation of learning in the context of collaborative philosophical inquiry. (shrink)