Collaborative Inquiry Research into Children’s Philosophical Reasoning

Abstract

Introduction: AUTHORS' NOTE: This is an account of our experiences researching "children's philosophical reasoning": situating our research question, getting started, developing our methodology, encountering the unexpected, and researching recursively in writing. We tell our research-story from the points of view of two researchers. Judy, a practising Philosophy for Children teacher (Elementary), gives graduate-level teacher education courses in Philosophy for Children and is now working on her Ph.D. Michael, a community based educator and a graduate-level university lecturer in Philosophy of Education, was doing his M.A. when this research began and he too is now working on his Ph.D. In what follows, we tell how a way of "doing philosophy" became a way of "doing research, 11 and vice versa.