Abstract

The intention of the study was to identify predictable opportunities for teachers to scaffold middle year students’ philosophical learning. Such opportunities were identified in terms of students’ readiness to learn certain behaviours in the context of a ‘community of inquiry’. Thus it was hoped that the project would provide a useful resource for the teaching of philosophy to middle year students by ascertaining how amenable philosophical learning was to this approach. The study investigated the following questions: (i) what are the indicators of the development under the influence of the COI?; (ii) do these indicators cluster in any particular way? and (iii) is it possible to identify any clustering of indicators that suggests developmental bands?