A Study of the Impact of Reading the Stories of S adi's Gulistan on Developing Adolescent's Moral Judgment based on the Method of Teaching Philosophy to Children (P4C)

Philosophy for Children is a teaching method which leads children’s minds towards an attempt to respond to their need and enthusiasm for meaning. Teaching philosophy for children does not mean teaching the ideas of philosophers to children; rather, it means teaching them the reasoning and discrimination skills and developing their judgment power. Recently, the program of teaching philosophy for children has been employed in some countries. That is why an attempt has been made to use this program in Iran for the moral and philosophical development and correct training of adolescents, as well as for improving their reasoning and judgment powers. Since the stories designed for this program do not match the Iranian culture, the researchers decided to use some of the Iranian moral stories which suited their purpose. To achieve the research purpose, S‘adi’s Gulistan, which is a moral and instructional book, was chosen and its stories were simplified. The target sample of this study included all the students of one of the girls’ schools (teaching human sciences) in District 1 of Tehran. From among them, a class of 30 students was chosen as the ultimate research sample. The instrument used for data collection included Kholberg’s Moral Judgment Test, interview, observation, and note-taking. The collected data from the interviews, observations, and notes were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results of this research indicated that the use of native Iranian stories while following the method of teaching philosophy for children and adolescents program possesses the required rigor and efficiency for the development of moral values and urban life skills of adolescents.