Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children
Image of children sitting on the floor in a classroom, raising their arms.

Research on Methodological and Theoretical Aspects

  1. CHERVIN, M.I & KYLE, J.A (1993): “Collaborative inquiry research into children’s philosophical reasoning”. Analytic Teaching, Vol. 13, 2. PP. 11-32. It is a long report of a research on the implementation of the program. There is no precise information about the results, but an interesting reflection on methodology and on philosophical assumptions related to educational and psychological research.
  2. DEND PENG, ZHANG SHIRA, LIAO BOQIN (1997): “Will Philosophy for Children take Hold in Mainland China”, in Thinking Vol.13, n. 3. This paper questions if Chinese P4C is as legitimate as its American prototype and if it’s possible to have genuine dialogue between the two. It also evaluates Chinese teachers’ opinions about the educational values of the program.
  3. ELLEN, ARTHUR S. “Review of the NJTRS”. Critical comments of the New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills. Photocopy.
  4. HABAS, K.G.: “Children and Philosophy”, in Thinking Vol.13, n. 3. She describes the objectives of P4C after she had asked 9 to 11 year students on the first day of school. No data.
  5. HELMUT REICH, K. “From either/or to both-and though cognitive development”, in Thinking Vol. 12, n. 2. He analyses a particular rational and contextual reasoning (RCR) response, and discusses components of RCR and some applications.
  6. HENDERSON, A. (1988): “Program evaluation issues and analytic teaching”. Analytic Teaching, Vol. 8, 2. PP 43-55. The author does a theoretical analysis of the requisites and standards of any evaluation of the implementation of the program. Her main theses are very close to our own approach to research.
  7. HEYNES, FELICITY ANN (2001): “Growing Communities”, Paper presented in Winchester, July 2001. Her main thesis is very critical of the use of standard and normative pen and pencil tests alone. She proposes to use a more complex model: a broader range of inclusive evaluation measures, focusing on self-evaluation of the community of inquiry itself.
  8. IAPC. “New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills. Background information”. A very detailed report about the test. Mimeographed.
  9. KENG LIM, TOCK (1994): “The Philosophy for Children Project in Singapore”. Thinking, vol. 11, no. 2. It is a general introduction. She announces further information after processing the data from research. Feedback from teachers and students in previous implementation of the program are positive.
  10. MOREHOUSE, R. (1995): “Research in Philosophy for Children. An Outline and an Agenda” Critical and Creative Thinking. Vol. 3, no. 2, 74-82. After a short reference to early research of the implementation of the program and its success, the author focuses on qualitative research as the best methodology to evaluate the kind of knowledge construction and community of inquiry dialogue that goes on in Philosophy discussions. He analyzes four directions (experience-based reflections; individual qualitative projects; theory-based individual projects; and an interdisciplinary team) and mentions the most important questions to be asked in new studies and researches, using qualitative methodology and offering suggestions to teachers to improve their practice.
  11. MORRIS, SCOTT B. & RICHARD P. DESHON (2002): “Combining effect Size Estimates in Meta-Analysis with Repeated Measures and Independent-Groups Designs”. A method for combining results across independent-groups and repeated measures designs is described and the conditions under which such an analysis is appropriate are discussed.
  12. NICOL, DAVID (1991): “An Evaluation of the Lipman Project in an English Comprehensive School” Thinking, vol. 9, no. 3. He offers generic and descriptive comments about the implementation of the program without any experimental research.
  13. PÁLSSON, HREIN (1994): “Interpretative Research and Philosophy for Children” in CAHMY, DANIELA G.: Children Thinking and Philosophy. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference of Philosophy for Children. Graz: Academia.. pp. 343-361 In this paper it is argued that the stated aims of P4C require interpretative research. This kind of research is compared and contrasted; the main discussion is drawn from an interpretative study the author did in Reykjavik (1987)
  14. SANTI, MARINA (1993): “Philosophizing and Learning to Think: some Proposals for a Qualitative Evaluation” Thinking, Vol. 10, No. 3. She offers a theoretical reflection on the evaluation of the program. The author defends a qualitative approach to evaluation. She proposes four different methods, and, in order to analyze the transcriptions of the philosophical discussions, suggests six elements of argumentation (from Toulmin), ten epistemic categories and five roles of teachers and peers.
  15. SANFORD, J. COHN (s.d.): “New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills. Virginia Shipman.” Review of the NJTRS. Photocopy.
  16. STERNBERG, ROBERT; BHANA, KASTOOR: “Synthesis of Research on the Effectiveness of Intellectual Skills Programs: Snake-Oil Remedies or Miracle Cures?” In Educational Leadership, v. 44, n2, pp. 60-67. October 1986. Reviews the research on five leading thinking skills programs, including Lipman’s P4C curriculum, and concludes that more rigorous evaluation research is needed and that more attention should be given to outcome measures, transfer and durability of training”. Quoted from Henderson (1988).
  17. TORRE, SATURNINO DE LA Y VIRGINIA FERRER (1991): “Los estilos sociocognitivos en el programa de FpN”. Aprender a Pensar, nº 3. The authors analyze a questionnaire to discover the cognitive styles of students. Some significant differences between experimental and control groups are discovered, but there is no specific data from the research.
  18. WEINSTEIN, MARK (1989): “The Philosophy of Philosophy for Children. An Agenda for Research” Analytic Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 1. Central claims of the program are presented, followed by a series of statements and questions that are central to the analysis and assessment of the theory and practice of philosophy for children.
  19. ZESALEGUI, J. “Philosophy for Children: An Exploratory study of “Doing Philosophy” with a grade 7 class and first and third-year student teacher in Zimbabwe” in Thinking 2 (1), (27-29) This paper describes the exploratory study which was carried out in Zimbabwe at a teacher training college using Lipman’s Pixie and Harry novels. It proposes a critical inquiry methodology. The authors include participants’ perceptions.