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Philosophy with Children: An Imaginative Democratic Practice

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The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education

Abstract

Since the late 1960s there has been a surge of interest in the teaching of philosophy in schools and other education settings besides universities. In Europe, philosopher Jacques Derrida was part of a group of teachers, school and university students and staff researching the teaching of philosophy and seeking to expand its remit, to pose new themes, problems and approaches (Cahen, 2001). In the USA, Professor of Philosophy Matthew Lipman and colleagues (Lipman, Sharp, & Oscanya, 1980) devised the Philosophy for Children programme (P4C), a transformative educational approach designed to bring philosophical problems and methods of philosophical reasoning to school children, from the age of six onwards. P4C, and many variants and offshoots of it, has since been taken up in nursery, primary and secondary schools in more than 60 countries around the world. Its pedagogical approach, the community of enquiry, has been adopted not only in formal education but also in informal, adult and community education, in a wide range of settings.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See http://p4c.com/history-p4c and http://www.montclair.edu/cehs/academics/centers-and-institutes/iapc/timeline/.

  2. 2.

    The Society for Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection in Education website includes a range of school case studies from the UK context http://www.sapere.org.uk/Default.aspx?tabid=205.

  3. 3.

    Murris, amongst others, has addressed these criticisms in her work (see for example Murris, 2000).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Education, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK

    Joanna Haynes

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  1. Joanna Haynes
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Correspondence to Joanna Haynes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Newman University, Birmingham, United Kingdom

    Helen E. Lees

  2. Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

    Nel Noddings

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Haynes, J. (2016). Philosophy with Children: An Imaginative Democratic Practice. In: Lees, H., Noddings, N. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41291-1_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-41291-1_18

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-41290-4

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