To what extent does Philosophy with Children promote the discussion of political philosophical themes?

Abstract

This study consisted of a seven-week period of action research with a Primary three class, investigating the potential use of the Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI) model of Philosophy with Children to allow children to explore political ideas. The stimuli consisted of letters based on traditional tales and newspaper articles which lent themselves to political themes such as; equality, human rights, happiness, tolerance and safety. The rules of CoPI were explained prior to each session and, after reading the stimulus, questions which ‘puzzled’ the participants were raised. The facilitator chose the question which had the greatest potential to lead to a philosophical dialogue and the participant who offered the question was asked to explain their thoughts regarding it. Political philosophical themes arose as the children discussed and offered new ideas to the group.  Analysis of audio-recordings highlighted evidence of political philosophical themes and thus the success of the CoPI model in allowing children to explore such ideas.