This paper considers whether Philosophy for Children (P4C) can contribute to the development of the ‘thinking’ key competency of The New Zealand Curriculum. Additionally, it seeks to demonstrate what ‘action research’ looks like in relation to a seven month trial in a New Zealand school of P4C and its associated methodology of the Community of Philosophical Enquiry (COPE). The action research methodology outlined here is broadly a form of practitioner enquiry, which affirms the role of the researcher, thus breaking with conventional positivistic and rationalist research that hides the researcher from view. Several data sources are tracked to reach the conclusion that P4C does indeed encourage critical thinking and deep questioning ‐ but not for all students, and not to the same extent for all in this study, thus creating a new ‘problem’. The mixed success of the trial suggests good grounds for further exploration of the practice of P4C in schools such as that under study here.

The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation.

Philosophy for Children (P4C): A New Zealand School-based Action Research Case Study

This chapter seeks to develop a ‘horizon of possibility’ around how schools should include young people in the process of creating ‘dialogue’ with their communities. There are four parts. First, challenging the dominant business model of engagement arguing instead for a personcentred approach around democratic decision-making and dialogicrelationships. Second, exploring how schools and communities need to be partners in a conversation, and an example is provided from a multicultural Australian elementary school. Third, there is discussion of dialogic forms of learning where schools and communities create spaces in which teachers and young people are able to link their ‘moments of reflection to their moments of action’ through classroom observations and interviews with teachers and students in a school setting. Fourth, in positioning youth as ‘powerful people’ we reveal how power andprivilege work against some youth and how it is possible to reconfigure school/community relations to advance the interests of those who are the least advantaged. The chapter concludes with a summary of key principles and ideas underpinning a socially critical approach to school/community relations.

Socially Critical School/Community Relations

https://l1.publication-archive.com/download/1/3701

Dialogic teaching and multilingual counterpublics

This paper describes an innovative teaching model to build social work student competence in child abuse and neglect through agency and university collaboration. This model is unique in utilizing both a professional educator and a professional practitioner to design, plan, and teach a competency-based curriculum which addresses both social work educational needs and specific job-related expectations. The collaborative teaching model moves social work education toward practice relevancy, and social work practice toward theoretical grounding. Collaborative small group learning in adult education guide the process of student competency development. Course methodology, evaluation, benefits and challenges are examined.

The Politics of Education: Culture, Power, and Liberation.

Citations

Philosophy for Children (P4C): A New Zealand School-based Action Research Case Study

Socially Critical School/Community Relations

Dialogic teaching and multilingual counterpublics

A Collaborative Teaching Model to Build Competence

Voices of the Undereducated in Adult Education and Training in Ontario: A Phenomenographic Approach

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