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Research

The advantages of using philosophy for children in RE

Nastasya van der Straten Waillet, Isabelle Roskam & Cécile Possoz

Research Summary

What view of educational content or knowledge does philosophy for children have, and what kind of thinking does it promote amongst pupils? E.g. does it lead them to firm, absolute conclusions, or does it take away authority and guidance? The research (based on analysing theory and field data) shows that philosophy for children avoids these extremes and enables pupils to be evaluative. This is argued to be positive for RE lessons, because it helps pupils find meaning in their lives and helps social cohesion. Thus, RE teachers ought to be aware of these findings and consider whether or not philosophy for children might be used in our classrooms.

Researchers

Nastasya van der Straten Waillet, Isabelle Roskam & Cécile Possoz

Research Institution

Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium

What is this about?

  • The context for the research is reforms to RE in French-speaking Belgium. In other places philosophy for children had been introduced, but there was concern that this approach took firm guidance away from pupils.
  • Philosophy for children is explained.
  • Absolutism and relativism are explained, and philosophy for children placed in between them.
  • Philosophy for children is shown to help pupils to evaluate religious material – and this is argued to help them to develop personally and to to help with cohesion in society.

What was done?

The research consists mostly of review and discussion of theories and types of pedagogy, though some field data fom other studies are also brought in.

Main findings and outputs

  • Philosophy for children: children should be enquirers, pursuing questions and developing critical thinking. In the pedagogical method of a community of inquiry, they consider a stimulus (e.g. text, picture), raise related questions, focus down jointly on one question and are guided by the teacher through a discussion designed to illuminate different points of view and decision-making.
  • It isn’t an absolutist process, inquiry and decision-making are ongoing and no fixed, objective truth can be known.
  • Neither is it a relativist process, critical thinking and argumentation are important and there is no assumption that all points of view are equally true.
  • Philosophy for children is between the two extremes, calling for ongoing exploration of different views and ideas and respecting pupils’ rights to correct themselves and change their minds.
  • Being evaluative makes philosophy for children highly suited to RE. It helps young people to make meaning for themselves. This is good for democracy and helps pupils as future citizens (people of different religious and non-religious persuasions should be prepared to listen to and discuss views with one another).
  • In the approach taken within the Hampshire Agreed RE syllabus, teachers create communities of inquiry on religious concepts, using a five-step method: pupils communicating understanding of the concept, applying this understanding to different contexts, inquiring about a question that emerged through the first two steps, contextualising the concept and related questions in various religious and secular contexts, and finally evaluating the concept from several viewpoints including their own.

Relevance to RE

The research is relevant to RE curriculum planning but especially to pedagogy. Teachers who already use philosophy for children within RE might use the research as a means to know and understand more about its purposes and processes. The research suggests that philosophy for children can help pupils to gain improved skills of evaluation, so teachers who are aiming to improve their pupils’ evaluative skills might be directed to the use of philosophy for children as a method of teaching.

Generalisability and potential limitations

The research appears to offer generalisable findings about the uses and possible benefits of philosophy for education, but like much research on pedagogy, depends on teachers to work with the methods in their own classrooms and reflect on their practice. Within that, it provides a useful criterion: did the teaching enable pupils to be more evaluative than before? How might it be developed so as to enable them to improve their evaluative skills further, in future?

Find out more

On the epistemological features promoted by ‘Philosophy for Children’ and their psychological advantages when incorporated into RE, British Journal of Religious Education 37.3 pages 273-292 (published online 30 July 2014), 10.1080/01416200.2014.937795

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01416200.2014.937795

 

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