Learning to Dialogue in Kindergarten A Case Study

Abstract

Introduction:  This text presents an experiment with 5-year-old Quebec kindergarten children who experienced the Philosophy for Children (P4C) approach for the first time. The experiment was short-term, lasting from mid-February to mid-May. Its objective was to study preschool-aged children’s capacity to dialogue. The questions that oriented our research were: When guided by an adequate philosophical approach, are 5-year-old kindergarten children able to dialogue (dia-logos) with their peers? Can they be critical? What is the teacher’s role in the development of children’s communicative actions? Two types of analyses, stemming from a two-part theoretical framework, were used to answer these questions. The first part refers to Habermas’ criteria, and the second to a typology of exchanges among peers proposed by Daniel and colleagues.