نشریه تفکر و کودک
سال یکم شماره 1 (بهار و تابستان 1389)

The present article was written after a number of current language development theories in children such as behaviorism, nativism, functionalism and, in particular, vigotsky's theory concerning the development of language and thought in children and the interconnections between language and thought were briefly reviewed. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the [wide] implications of Vigotsky's theory in the analysis of the relations between language and thought. A surly of vigotsky's two key concepts, x.e. proximate development zone and mediation, indicate that they bear significance for the process of teaching philosophy to children this article has discussed the relevancy of Vigotsky's theory with the foundations of philosophy for children(p4c) and has looked mto the teaching of children, the role of teaching in the promotion of the process of thinking in children and the social role of language in the enhancement of that process. It is the opinion of this writer that an analysis of Vigotsky's theory provides a sound understanding that endorses the necessity of teaching of philosophy to children and, alongside of that, sheds light on the scientific bases of such teaching and the consistency of its methodology with scientific principles

One of the fundamental aims of any educational system is to educate well-informed, and enlightened people, those who base their thoughts on valid reasoning and logic and who using comprehensive and profound thinking in their encounters with the outside world, consider life’s problems from different perspectives and exhibit flexibility; in other words, educating people with philosophical mentality. To meet this goal, it seems necessary that curricula should focus on philosophical thinking and develop the power of thinking and reasoning in the students. In this connection, one of the programs designed in recent decades to develop philosophical thinking and promote “philosophizing” on the part of children is that of philosophy for children program (p4c). The aim of study was to investigate the theoretical foundations of (p4c). The research approach of the study was descriptive-analytic. The findings of the study indicate that although in this program vast attention has been paid to the different dimensions of the philosophical mentality, with regard to the degrees of the attention paid by this program to the individual dimensions of philosophical mentality certain disproportionalities are observed. That is, while certain elements of the philosophical mentality, such as questioning the obvious matters, evaluating ideas detached from their sources and relating affairs to long-term goals, have received more attention than others

Psychological theories of moral development mainly focus on the following issues: when and how child acquires the moral faculty and how we can improve his/her moral judgments. In the first part of this paper, we will briefly review some of the main psychological theories of moral development. Our main concern is to study the relationship between children's literature and moral development; therefore we try to extract some questions from each theory to evaluate a literary work from a moral point of view. By means of such questions we can analyze a particular literary work and see whether it is possible to use as a material in P4C community of inquiry or not. Moreover, by having such a list of questions we can see which features of moral development are neglected and which ones are dominant in a particular body of literary works. In the second part of the paper, we will consider six stories written by Jamshid Khanian and will evaluate them from a moral point of view using the prepared set of questions. Our analysis shows that Khanian's works are rich and can be used easily as suitable materials in P4C sessions

Human-beings are the only creatures that lay claim to thought and getting involved in thinking. Thanks to this potentiality they are bestowed with opportunities to learn as both individual and members of society. One of the domains that has undoubtedly proved its merit in the promotion of human thinking concerns philosophy and philosophical thinking, as philosophy is the art of questioning and questioning is the mainstay of human rationality. Although the presence of philosophy in human existence is nothing new, what has nowadays gained significance, though as a new potentiality is at its very early stage, is an endeavor toward the dissemination of philosophy, especially in teaching it to children; a teaching whose significant outcomes impress the personal life of the child from the very beginning and, at later stages, will all the more be a source of his/her material and spiritual enjoyments. In general, this will eventually culminate in the promotion of the cultural level of the society. In this connection, the writer of this article is trying to explore two main perspectives: the bond and relationship of philosophy with society, and the teaching of philosophy to children. This, I hope, will cast into relief the efficacy of philosophy in solving social problems.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of teaching philosophy by using the community of inquiry method on the moral judgment development in students of the fifth grade in primary of Ahvaz. The population of this research was all the students in the fifth grade in Ahvaz, and we chose 120 girl and boy students (60 in experimental group and 60 in witness group) by cluster sampling. For data gathering in this research, the moral judgment test was used (MJT). The data were analyzed via one variable co-variance. The findings show that teaching philosophy by using the (COL) method has a positive effect on the moral judgment development of students of the fifth grade both girls and boys without any significant difference, and equal effect on their moral judgment development. The findings of this study are coherent with research findings in other countries.

Stories play a vital role in the formation of critical thinking. The aim of this study is to pin down the potentials of ordinary stories in the formation and promotion of critical thinking in children. The skills under investigation include [the provision for and drawing attention to]:aims, questioning, data and information, evidence, experience, inferences and interrelationships, presuppositions, implications, consequences, ideas, fairness, courage, cooperation, firmness, mental perseverance, confidence in thinking, control of self-centeredness, and abilities for moral judgments. In this study by use of content analysis method and by utilizing Richard Paul’s views as a basis, the skills and features involved in critical thinking were explored in the stories approved and designated by the children’s Books Board for children in the Age Group C, published in the time span of 1342-1385. the findings show that the features of implications and consequences, information, data, evidence, experience, aim, moral reasoning abilities enjoy a better status [i.e. are dealt with more adequately] than others. The weakest features include: presuppositions, faith in thinking, ideas, inferences and interpretations. It should be noted that as far as critical thinking features are concerned the main sustained growth belongs to recent stories published in 1380’s. of course, a limit growth seems to have taken place in 1340’s.

To investigate the effect of community of inquiry method on improvement of interpersonal relationship skills, based on Lipman’s theory, an experiment was conducted in Tehran primary schools among students of grade third, fourth and fifth. 190 boy and girl students were randomly selected (97 boy, 93 girl) and assigned to experimental and control group(88 experimental, 102 control). The experimental group was taught based on community of inquiry method for twelve, ninety-minute sessions. Cooper Ardly & Asher questionnaire for students and Vir & Davin questionnaire for teachers were used as the instruments of the study for collecting data about interpersonal relationship skills. To examine the effect of treatment, the collected data was analyzed by using various descriptive and deductive statistical techniques such as mean, standard of deviation, anova, paired and independed T test. The comparative of pre-test's means of both experimental and control group didnt show any different. But the result of pre-test and post-test of both experimental and control group indicate that the mean of post-test scores of experimental group in relation to pre-test in interpersonal relationship skills has increased while the mean of control group hasnt different in post-test and the mean of experimental group in post-test is higher than the mean of control group. Besides, to investigate insolubility of implementation effect, again the students were rechecked after 4 mount. The results has indicated on insolubility of effect. therefore this semi-experimental study have shown that implementing community of inquiry method has posi­tively affected interpersonal relationship skills of the experimental group and save this effect until 4 mount.