Mechanisms of Community Formation in Philosophy for Children

Table 1: Mechanisms of Community Formation in Philosophy for Children

1. Group solidarity through dialogical inquiry
2. The primacy of activity and reflection
3. The articulation of disagreements and the quest for understanding
4. Fostering cognitive skills (e.g., assumption finding, generalization, exemplification) through dialogical practice.
5. Learning to employ cognitive tools (e.g., reasons, criteria, concepts, algorithms, rules, principles
6. Joining together in cooperative reasoning (e.g., building on each other’s ideas, offering counterexamples or alternative hypotheses, etc.)
7. Internalization of the overt cognitive behavior of the community (e.g., introjecting the ways in which classmates correct one another until each becomes systematically self-corrective)—‘intrapsychical reproduction of the interpsychical’ (Vygotsky)
8. Becoming increasingly sensitive to meaningful nuance of contextual differences
9. Group collectively groping its way along, following the argument where it leads (Lipman, p. 242)

Thus, in conclusion, students and teachers becoming communities of inquirers is not an automatic happening that can take place in just any environment. It takes a teacher that has both the experience and beliefs to support the growth of such a group, and administrative and curricular support to foster the right environment
for the teacher and students. (p. 308)
 
Source: Pardales, Michael and Girod, Mark (2006) Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 38, No. 3, 2006 (pp. 299-309)