The Effectiveness of Teaching Philosophy on Children on Empathy and Solving Social Problems Elementary School Students

In recent decades, philosophy and children has been proposed under title including Philosophy for Children (P4C) in the field of education and philosophy. Given the importance of education for children in contemporary philosophy, this study examines the importance of teaching philosophy for children. The purpose of this study was to explain the effect of the "Philosophy for Children" educational program (P4C) on empathy and social problem solving in students. This research was carried out using a semi-experimental method. The statistical population of this study was all male students of the fifth grade elementary school of Hassan Abad city of Tehran. Using the convenience method, 30 male students of fifth grade elementary school were selected and randomly assigned to two groups of 15 subjects. Initially, both groups responded to Davis's revised Empathy questionnaire and social problem solving by D’Zurilla, et al. In the next stage, the experimental group was trained in philosophy for children and no training was provided to the control group. After the end of the training sessions, the questionnaires were returned to both groups of participants. Covariance analysis was used to analyze the data. In the end, it was determined that the implementation of this program can improve the empathy and the overall skill of social problem solving students (P <0/05). The results of this study suggest that participation in the "Philosophy for Children" curriculum leads to improved the empathy and the overall skill of solving the social problem.