The Philosophy for Children in Schools Project (P4CISP) is a research project to monitor and evaluate the impact of Philosophy for Children (P4C) on classroom practices. In this paper the impact of P4C on the thinking skills of four children aged 10 is examined. Standardised tests indicated the children had below-average reading ages. The pupils…

Drawing on recent developments in dialogic approaches to learning and teaching, I examine the roots of dialogic meaning-making as a concept in classroom practices. Developments in the field of dialogic pedagogy are reviewed and the case for dialogic engagement as an approach to classroom interaction is considered. The implications of dialogic…

Argues that a transcript of a whole class of primary children who were video-recorded while engaged in a role-play activity provides support for the view that children's learning can be seen as a socio-historically and culturally-constituted dialogical process of meaning making. Draws on Bakhtin's ideas about the power of dialogic engagement to…