Qualitative Study on Education of Philosophy for Children

Abstract

Philosophy for children (P4C) is that children discuss the philosophical concepts such as knowledge, trueness, reality, and justice in an adult guidance by starting from a text, a story or a case study. This study was carried out in order to determine how education of philosophy for children has affected the 3rd grade students in the primary schools in the cognitive, affective and social areas by being used the qualitative research method for a total of 28 hours and 14 weeks.  At the end of the process, in the cognitive domain, it has been observed some changes in students, such as understanding the philosophy, the questions of philosophy and the features of philosophers, establishing relations between concepts, associating the concepts with everyday life, cognizing the thinking errors, orientation to think, and thinking from different angles. Enjoying the philosophy and awareness of the concepts have been also mentioned by the philosophers in the affective domain. Also, in the social domain, some changes occurred in students’ problem-solving and knowing each other. Philosophy for children can be integrated with the programs of many courses at different age levels from pre-school to high school or be taught as a separate course.