This article offers a critical reflection on philosophical practice with children and youth in Puerto Rico, grounded in personal, community, and institutional experiences. Through projects such as Guailimanai, Philosophy for Children Puerto Rico (FpNPR), and ZONA-FILO, it explores how philosophy can serve as a transformative pedagogical tool from an early age. The importance of philosophical dialogue, family participation, and critical thinking rooted in contexts of oppression is emphasized. Inspired by the work of Walter Omar Kohan (2018), the article establishes a dialogue between the proposals of Matthew Lipman and Paulo Freire. While Lipman aimed to develop cognitive skills through logical reasoning, Freire advocated for an education oriented toward critical consciousness and social transformation. The article expands on Kohan’s discussion by addressing the notion of educational neutrality, arguing that neutrality is an illusion in contexts marked by structural inequalities. From a critical pedagogy perspective, it asserts that education is inherently political. Neutrality, rather than ensuring equality, can become an ally of oppressive power. Therefore, the article proposes a committed philosophical practice, where educators and learners take ethical stances on issues such as colonialism, gentrification, femicide, racism, and adultcentrism. In this framework, philosophy does not seek to impose viewpoints but to foster sincere dialogue, deep questioning, and transformative action.

In a fast-changing and evolving world, we need more and more flexible and critical thinkers. Critical thinking is a cornerstone of education and a necessity for all human activity. One of the growing problems in an increasingly digital society is the constant loss of dialogue and reflective discussion in the learning process. In pedagogical practice, critical thinking is effectively exercised through discussion and questioning. Philosophical discussion with the support of the Philosophy for Children programme is a good way to support pre-school children's critical thinking and reasoning skills. The aim of this follow-up qualitative study was to describe different questioning techniques during group-discussion utilising the Philosophy for Children programme in order to scaffold Estonian preschoolers' reasoning. The data was collected during an 8-month period through philosophical group-discussions engaged five- to six-years-old children with 20 observations from five groups (N=58). Transcripts from group-discussions were analysed using qualitative analysis. The findings indicated that the functions of a discussion leader´s open- and closed-ended questions varied depending on the children´s responses and behavior. Eight functions for open-ended questions and five functions with five parallel functions for closed-ended questions are described. Some closed-ended questions can support higher-level thinking in cases where they prompt children to compare, hesitate, or explain. A model for asking questions in group discussions was prepared, providing guidelines for asking questions in a purposeful manner, based on the function of the previous question and the child's answer. The informed understanding of questioning techniques is useful to identify how kindergarten teachers can scaffold children during group-discussions.

The aim of this essay is to demonstrate how the educational model of philosophy for children (P4C) can function as a powerful pedagogical tool within the college classroom. It might challenge students to consider philosophical concepts in new contexts, allow them to reflect on their own childhood and consider their philosophical growth, provide them with tools for thinking philosophically with children in the future (as caregivers or educators), or provide philosophical concepts greater vibrancy through narrative or illustration. More specifically, in my own teaching, it has proven to be an effective pedagogical strategy for tackling antiracist and decolonial themes. In the following, I will outline how I have designed teaching methods and course assignments that have interfused my expertise in philosophy of childhood and/or P4C with the fields of Jewish studies, philosophy of race, and critical race theory, the result of which has produced both a dynamic scholarly dialogue and a rich educational environment. Incorporating P4C methods into the college classroom—such as the use of children’s books as a form of philosophical inquiry has played a pivotal role in developing of community of mutual inquiry where students learn from each other and even I as the professor have learned from my students.

This article proposes “philosophizing as children” as an epistemic stance that challenges the adultist assumptions embedded in the philosophical tradition. Rather than viewing childhood as a stage preceding rational thought, it argues that traits associated with childhood—curiosity, openness, and dependence—are fundamental conditions for the act of philosophizing itself. Drawing selectively on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception and Ahmed’s phenomenology of attention, the paper describes a mode of thinking that remains in relation to the unknown and resists gestures of mastery and closure that characterize adult rationality. In dialogue with Tronto’s ethics of care and Lugones’s notion of world-traveling, it suggests that thinking as children entails a relational and affective commitment to others. Philosophizing as children entails an intentional infantilization of philosophical thought, understood as a refusal of adultist norms of mastery, closure, and epistemic self-sufficiency in favor of wonder, relational responsibility, and openness to alterity.

Considerar el racismo como objeto de conocimiento y reflexión, por lo general parte de la necesidad de esgrimir argumentos a favor o en contra de este fenómeno; pero abordarlo desde el movimiento de Filosofía para Niños implica asumir una herencia intelectual, que exige tratar este tema desde un punto de partida más alto y exigente. El rechazo al racismo y a la discriminación racial es un supuesto básico de la reflexión, que se podría tratar para visibilizar sus nuevas formas de expresión, pero investigadores como Jonathan Wurtz, Darren Chetty, Melissa Fitzpatrick y Amy Reed-Sandoval han creado un espacio de estudio y reflexión, que traslada la atención a problemas de otro nivel, retando a los estudiosos y practicantes de una enseñanza Temprana de la Filosofía, a elevar su mirada más allá del rechazo fundamentado a toda idea o acción de naturaleza racista. Este ámbito de discusión genera un punto de partida distinto y apasionante, que impele a trabajar en el entramado de cuestiones epistemológicas, éticas y pedagógicas involucradas en los problemas y desafíos que suponen hacer Filosofía para/con Niños en un mundo de racismo institucionalizado. Es por ello que en este artículo se diserta en torno a lo vulnerable que puede ser la comunidad de indagación filosófica ante el poder epistemológico que ha logrado alcanzar el racismo, y de qué manera los recursos filosóficos y pedagógicos proporcionados por el diálogo socrático pueden contribuir a fortalecer esta debilidad. La aporía resalta como una valiosa herramienta capaz de socavar la solidez paradigmática de la White Ignorance.

This article offers a postcolonial critique of Philosophy for Children (P4C), arguing that despite its democratic aspirations, the program risks reproducing epistemic violence and colonial hierarchies in racial, colonial, and Indigenous contexts. Drawing on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s “Can the subaltern speak?”, it examines how P4C’s universalist and Eurocentric foundations structurally silence subaltern voices by privileging the norms of Anglo-American analytic philosophy and marginalizing alternative epistemologies. Spivak’s concept of “epistemic violence” shows that even well-intentioned attempts at inclusion can reinforce subaltern invisibility when their speech remains unintelligible within dominant knowledge systems. In response to the impossibility that Spivak identifies, which closes off the possibility of authentic subaltern speech, I engage with Henry Giroux’s concept of “border pedagogy” to explore ways of decolonizing P4C. Giroux reimagines educational spaces as sites of critical negotiation where dominant and subaltern knowledge systems meet, encouraging border crossing practices that question claims to epistemic neutrality. Border pedagogy supports contextualized and pluralistic inquiry that values oral, narrative, and affective modes of reasoning alongside canonical traditions. The article proposes considerations and strategies for implementing a decolonial P4C praxis, including the use of ethnographic listening, the integration (and interrogation) of popular culture and Indigenous knowledge systems. By synthesizing Spivak’s diagnostic critique with Giroux’s practical considerations, this article’s effort is to reposition P4C as a potential site for epistemic justice, pluralistic dialogue, and transformative education accountable to history, difference, and power.

Philosophy for Children (P4C) is an educational movement implemented in hundreds of schools worldwide; however, limited research has been conducted in Greece. This study explores primary school teachers’ experiences with (a) philosophy in primary education and children’s philosophical abilities, (b) the proposed benefits of philosophical discussions for children, (c) the challenges teachers and children experience during P4C, and (d) teachers’ practices in philosophy education. A mixed-methods study design was implemented. This paper presents the qualitative findings obtained through semi-structured interviews with (N=10) P4C teachers. A thematic analysis was applied to interpret the data. The findings support philosophy in primary education. Teachers homogeneously endorsed the positive impact of P4C on children’s fondness for P4C classes. Key themes identified included the enhancement of children’s higher-order thinking skills (HOTS), emotional well-being, and democratic skills. Teachers reported challenges in managing their initial nervousness, navigating boundaries with children, and classroom dynamics. Students were perceived to face challenges in question-formulation, staying on-topic, and self-expression. Teachers expressed positive contributions of P4C in their professional development, fostering cross-curriculum skills, and teaching strategy transference.

The International Community of Philosophical Inquiry (ICPIC) has been organizing international conferences since its foundation in 1985. Those encounters put together several educators, philosophers and other practitioners committed to philosophical inquiry with children from different parts of the world., In August 2024 the International Federation of Philosophical Society – FISP held the 25th World Congress of Philosophy - WCP at University “La Sapienza” in Rome, Italy celebrating “Philosophy across Boundaries”, including Philosophy with Children in the list of Sections contributing to reflection and discussion on the topic. It was a challenging opportunity for ICPIC to be involved in the event, sharing with the community the great occasion to meet in the frame of cosmopolitism. The Dossier “philosophy with children across boundaries” includes papers presented by authors participating in these different instances, witnessing the quality of international research which ICPIC reached in its history, with a high engagement into academic inquiry and beyond. The aim of Section n.81 as well as the Dossier is double: to show how the theme of children as philosophical inquirers defiances the dominant metaphysics of childhood as chronological time or psychological stage to be surpassed in the linear logic of power and development in adultism, appropriating a difference place, or better a movement among the traditional philosophical fields.

This paper argues against Ecclestone and Hayes’ claims (2009) that children and young people are more anxious and less resilient because of ‘therapeutic education’. We propose that they present a partial view of education premised on the concept of ‘the diminished self’. We suggest that using the community of inquiry approach as devised by Lipman and Sharp (Lipman, 2003; Sharp, 2018; Lipman, et al., 1980), far from creating anxious learners, introduces them to the relational challenges of interpersonal communication, the uncertainties of philosophical engagement and in doing so, offers them space within which to develop their independent and collaborative thinking and reasoning, thus becoming more confident and more resilient learners who are capable of engaging with the uncertainties that surround them. The key to these enhanced capacities is an increased emphasis on ‘agonistic inquiry’ where conflict and agonistic relations are not avoided, where the affectual is integral to inquiry, and where a safe consensus over ends and means is less valued as a feature of inquiry.

This short paper puts forward a view that the Lipman/Sharp theory of critical, creative and caring thinking is thriving, having been adapted and further developed in the Australian context due to the innovations of Splitter, Cam and others, and applications and innovations continue to the present day. Evidence of the history of P4C in Australia is spelled out in detail in Burgh & Thornton (2016) and Burgh & Thornton (2018). This paper provides an addendum to these works, highlighting a case study of a more recent joint initiative which situates this theory at the centre of teaching, learning, and well-being for students in delivery of the Australian Curriculum in New South Wales (NSW). Through a partnership between the Association for Philosophy in Schools NSW and the Centre for Critical Thinking and Ethics at Newington College, we aspire to establish a lighthouse school of community best practice showcasing a set of practices that arise from and are directly informed by the tradition spearheaded by Lipman and Sharp.