from silencing children's literature to attempting to learn from it: changing views towards picturebooks in p4c movement

Abstract

This paper investigates critically the approaches to picturebooks as used in the history of philosophy for children (P4C) movement. Our concern with picturebooks rests mainly on Morteza Khosronejad's broader criticism that children's literature has been treated instrumentally by early founders of P4C, the consequence of which is abolishing the independent voice of this literature (2007). As such it demands that we scrutinize the position of children's literature in the history of this educational program, as well as other genres and forms, including picturebooks as a highly valued artistic-literary form to educationalists. In our inquiry, we probe, therefore, the transition of approaches to picturebooks concomitantly with the investigation of the transition of approaches to children's literature. This research evinces that some later scholars and practitioners of P4C have departed significantly not only from Lipman's approach to children's literature and picturebooks, but also from his conceptualization of childhood and philosophy for children. Meanwhile, it demonstrates that in spite of P4C scholars' taking effective steps to address children's literature in general and picturebooks in particular, there are some steps for them to take in order to fully recognize this literature as an independent branch of knowledge and picturebooks as artistic-literary unique works. While revealing the limitations and paradoxes that P4C scholars continue to deal with, in this article, we see Khosronejad's earlier idea (2007) as a suggestion to overcome the instrumentalization of children's literature and picturebooks in P4C. Fundamental dialogue with children's literature theorists particularly those of picturebooks will open new horizons to the realization of our suggestion.

The Effect of Philosophy Education for Children (P4C) on Students' Conceptual Achievement and Critical Thinking Skills: A Mixed Method Research

“…In the study of Bilen (2020) and Wilson & Harris (2018) students' conceptual achievement and scientific process skills were found to be on behalf experimental group with philosophy education for children. In the study by Mhosronejad & Shokrollahzadeh (2020) and Şavşet (2016) it was found that academic and cognitive levels of students, who received philosophy education for children, were higher than other group students. Similarly, in terms of permanence, encouraging the students to learn must be permanent.…”

From invitation to destination: A systematic literature review of the use of picturebooks in inquiry‐based education

“…She also identifies picturebooks about migration and environmentalism as areas of research growth. Like others (Haynes & Murris, 2012;Khosronejad & Shokrollahzadeh, 2020;Roche, 2015;Shimek, 2019), Arizpe challenges approaches history, geography, citizenship and science education, as well as in interdisciplinary approaches.…”

“…One inquiry-based area where the pedagogical use of picturebooks is well theorised is philosophy for children (P4C) (Haynes & Murris, 2012;Khosronejad & Shokrollahzadeh, 2020;Murris, 2014Murris, , 2016. Khosronejad and Shokrollahzadeh (2020) compare approaches to picturebooks within P4C scholarship, contrasting the rejection of picturebooks by Mathew Lipman to the promotion of picturebooks by subsequent scholars. They criticise instrumental approaches which overlook picturebook artistry to extract useful philosophical content.…”

“…She also identifies picturebooks about migration and environmentalism as areas of research growth. Like others (Haynes & Murris, 2012; Khosronejad & Shokrollahzadeh, 2020; Roche, 2015; Shimek, 2019), Arizpe challenges approaches which ignore picturebook aesthetics by instrumentalising them to teach literacy or thematic messages. The artistry, multimodality and often ambiguity affords immersive experiences which can support more dialogic, reflective and critical pedagogies.…”