Thomas Wartenberg offers his book as a guide that will provide elementary school teachers what they need to facilitate philosophical discussions with children. My concerns are centered on the nature and role of philosophical discussion, the level of philosophical acumen needed for facilitating such discussion, and the role of character development…

This short commentary offers praise for Tom Wartenberg's book "Big Ideas for Little Kids" and raises questions about who is best qualified to lead a philosophy discussion with children, and how we are to assess the benefits of doing philosophy with children.

This article is a response to criticism of my book "Big Ideas for Little Kids." The main topics addressed are: Who is the audience for the book? Can people without formal philosophical training can be good facilitators of elementary school philosophy discussions? Is it important to assess attempts to teach philosophy in elementary school? Should…

In this article we argue for the necessity of far-reaching change in school curricula and pedagogy. More particularly, we argue that developing students' understanding and engagement in the disciplines which make up the school curriculum requires an unearthing of the philosophical issues underlying science, mathematics, the arts, geography,…

Theories that explain the gender discrepancy in mathematics almost universally explain why boys are "better at math" than girls while failing to adequately account for girls' higher grades in math classes or better performances on tests of computational ability. This article develops a new, more comprehensive theoretical model that explains girls'…

In this article, the authors investigate the extent to which 9 elementary social studies methods textbooks present the purpose of teaching and learning social studies. Using Stanley's three perspectives of teaching social studies for knowledge transmission, method of intelligence, and social transformation; we analyze how these texts prepare…

In this qualitative research project, I investigated curricular decision making and the relationship among teacher philosophies, textbook materials, and classroom practice. Participants included 5 experienced 5th-grade teachers who used a comprehensive social studies textbook package, "History Alive! America's Past". Information was…

This article explores the ways that alternative digital media production by elementary students can support education for critical democracy. The article centers on a collaborative, qualitative study in which students in a 3rd-grade class at a Title One school created and disseminated podcasts about issues of historical injustice rooted in the key…

Dialogue about social and political conflicts is a key element of democratic citizenship education that is frequently advocated in scholarship but rarely fully implemented, especially in classrooms populated by ethnically and economically heterogeneous students. Qualitative case studies describe the contrasting ways 2 primary and 2 middle-grade…

Engaging students in controversial issues provides numerous benefits for developing democratic citizenship. A wide variety of pathways and challenges exist to their discussion in classrooms, many of which are based upon societal and cultural context. This study explores the context of Guam and maps the issues of controversy within categories of…

This article reports on a study that repositioned elementary students in new roles as active, critical participants in historical inquiry--roles that required a more mature epistemic stance. It reports 5th-grade students' responses to instructional methods intended to help them understand the nature of historical knowledge, appreciate the…

Amid the recent proliferation of teacher-led movements resisting high-stakes testing across the United States, the authors identify how a "failing" elementary school reclaimed local discourse by taking political action against top-down measures. Framed as competing modes of school reform, the authors offer the sociocultural framework of…

In his influential book "Dialogues with Children" (1984), Gareth Matthews presents strong evidence that children as young as six can and should engage in philosophical discourse. His findings form the basis of this article, a theoretical and practical guide for parents and teachers seeking respectful and creative ways to encourage children to…

This article presents the general framework for a course at college level in which philosophy students learn to teach philosophy to students in elementary school. As well as addressing the rationale for such a course, the article outlines the organization of the course and the various requirements students in it must fulfill. In so doing, it…

This study addresses the question: Do second-grade students from low- socioeconomic-status (SES) schools taught with an iteratively designed project-based approach to social studies and content literacy instruction: (a) make statistically significant gains on standards-based social studies and content area literacy assessments, and (b) reach a…