foundations of democracy and sustainability: power, reality and dragons

Abstract

The goal of our work has been to better understand how Engaged Philosophical Inquiry (EPI) can be used with young children (age 4) on topics related to our local forest environment as part our foundation curriculum on sustainability (MacDonald, in press). Theoretically we draw on the work of Matthew Lipman (2009; 2003); Philosophy for Children (P4C); Phillip Cam, (1998; 2000); John Dewey, (1954); Gunilla Dahlberg and Peter Moss (2005) to discuss democratic community building, and ethical pedagogical approaches related to EPI and young children. Working with children of this age holistically on the topic of sustainability has not been systematically researched to date. Our findings therefore contribute to better understandings of EPI and: 1) democratic community building processes; 2) the use of context to focus our discussions; 3) group membership and group size; and 4) turn taking and the role of the moderator