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Children's Literature in Education

, Volume 45, Issue 2, pp 145–165 | Cite as

Reading Philosophically in a Community of Enquiry: Challenging Developmentality with Oram and Kitamura’s Angry Arthur

  • Karin Murris
Original Paper
First Online:

Abstract

Meanings in a picturebook are constructed in the space between words, images and reader. Contemporary picturebooks are ideal vehicles for a deep reading of, and philosophical engagement with, texts that move beyond literary and literacy knowledge. Philosophy with picturebooks also offers an alternative to personal responses to these texts that are individual, subjective and anecdotal. The use of these works of art for teaching demands an epistemological reorientation with ethical and political implications. First, it is argued how picturebooks’ ambiguity and complexity demand the ‘community of enquiry’ pedagogy that positions its participants (including young children) as able meaning-makers and problem-posers. Secondly, it is shown how philosophical knowledge changes the questions lecturers, teachers and primary children ask and how these can disrupt naturalised psychological discourses about child and childhood. The argument is supported by showing how the picturebook Angry Arthur by Oram and Kitamura can be used in teacher education to teach key theoretical distinctions in the philosophy of emotions and how these ideas challenge the still current discourse of developmentality through deep readings that are also literal and not symbolic or figurative as often assumed. Angry Arthur is therefore suggested as a useful text in teacher education especially in combination with the community of enquiry pedagogy.

Keywords

Community of enquiry Philosophy with children Teacher education Developmentality Emotional literacy Angry Arthur 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the reviewers of this journal for their support in improving the quality of this paper. I would also like to express my gratitude to Hiawyn Oram and Satoshi Kitamura and also Andersen Press for their permission to reproduce the three illustrations from Angry Arthur (1993).

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.School of Education, Graduate School of HumanitiesUniversity of Cape TownCape TownSouth Africa
  2. 2.University of the WitwatersrandJohannesburgSouth Africa

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