نشریه تفکر و کودک
سال چهارم شماره 2 (پاییز و زمستان 1392)

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of teaching the strategy of”guided reciprocal peer questioning“on third graders female students’ critical thinking in secondary school. The research is semi-experimental and it has been conducted through forming two groups using pretests and posttests. The Subjects were 60 third graders in secondary school in the city of Khomein. Of whom 30 students formed the experimental group to receive indirect teaching of thinking abilities and the rest formed the control group who received the traditional teaching approach. Subjects were selected by cluster random sampling method. Cornell Critical Thinking Test (CTCT) was used in research and ANCOVA was used to analyze the data. The results revealed that indirect teaching of thinking abilities enhanced the experimental groups’ critical thinking skills.

In this study، we investigated the opinions، attitudes and ideologies that the authors of children’s book convey to the children and adolescences through their books. Thus، we have strived to identify what the concepts، beliefs، attitudes and ideologies in the religious books targeted at children and teenagers are and what linguistic structures represent these ideologies and concepts in such books. The approach adopted in this research is Thompson’s method of analyzing ideology (1990). He identifies five general modes through which ideology can operate to establish and sustain relations of domination—legitimation، dissimulation، unification، fragmentation and reification—and a number of strategies appropriate to their symbolic expression. Moreover، to analyze the structures of the texts، concepts proposed in Halliday’s Functional Grammar have been used. The case study in this research comprised six stories for these two age groups which can be categorized as religious stories. This research is descriptive-analytical. One of the findings of the research shows that the authors of such books sometimes have applied different strategies of narration، narrative expression and stories and sometimes have opted for rationalization or have provided tangible and obvious reasons to convey these concepts. Besides، they have used differentiation and universalization. Because of the unpleasant and negative nature of concepts such as punishment for sins and retribution the strategy of mystification was used. Moreover، to express painful concepts sometimes strategies of euphemism، trope and dissimulation have been employed.

This paper has dealt with the role of conceptual schemes in education. There has been three approaches to conceptual schemes. Analyzing two extreme types، one asserting the existence of identical scheme among different individuals and another arguing for radical or absolute relativity among them، it is concluded that moderately relative approach to schemes is more practical in education. Studying Wittgenstein’s ideas، it can be understood that he also positively opts for moderately relative approach to schemes and it can be reasonably said that he is a serious adherent of such policy. Finally، it is concluded that accepting and employing moderately relative approach to schemes، one can hope to improve conceptual learning and potential individual creativity. Such attitude among educators lays a solid theoretical foundation for children’s philosophy. This study is practical as it yields implications and necessities for education.

Eternity، death and the fear of death are among concepts and notions that children from certain age face. One of the most important methods for learning the skill of facing such philosophical concepts is using stories and selecting appropriate stories to serve such purpose needs knowledge، interpretation and analysis. In this paper، a realistic story of a twelve-year-old girl who is on the verge of death because of cancer is chosen and analyzed. According to Kubler-Ross facing death has five stages: denial، anger، bargaining، depression and acceptance. Sadako quickly goes through the first and second phases of the psychology of grief being denial and anger. However، in the third phase of Sadako’s life as well as the plot of the story moves to a different plane and situation. Sadako employs myth، playing and story to overcome the fear. From this view point، playing، ritual and death join one another in a way that eventually this game- myth or playing- the story، helps Sadako and his associates، in the first place، and all the audiences of the story، in the second place، to accept and overcome the fear of death. Mythotherapy and eternity can also be found in Persian mystical texts such as the story of “the Crane and the Roc”.

This article aims at the reading and scrutinizing four selected Persian classic stories (Kelīlah & Demnah. Būstān، Gulistān، and Mathnavī) to find out their concordance based on their features and the aims of mentally engaging stories in philosophy program for children. This research has employed content analysis and comparison method. It initially، introduces a chapter on the rich narrative content of Persian literature and analyzes the crucial features of philosophical stories according to principles outlined by the pioneers of such movement (Mitto Lipman، Philip C. A. M Van، Margaret Sharp). The four primary criteria established for philosophical stories are: 1) Philosophical content 2) thinking abilities، 3) analyzability and 4) ending the story. According to these main criteria، about 98 stories were selected which met the needs of philosophy program for children. The results indicate that the content of such stories are concordant with the targets of philosophical stories which at least enjoys a philosophical concept. Moreover، based on other features (thinking abilities، analyzability and ending the story) and according to provided indexes in texts، these stories are reasonably concordant with the targets of philosophical stories.

The present study examines the effect of dialogue based on community of philosophical Inquiry on reducing the symptoms of psychosomatic disorders among 11-12-year-old female students in the city of Tehran. This semi-empirical study was conducted via test and control groups. The sample population of the study consisted of 50، fifth and sixth graders of public primary schools in the city of Tehran who were chosen through random cluster sampling in several steps، among the 19 education districts. The research instrument was Achenbach questionnaire، Youth Self-Report (YSR). Initially، using the questionnaire، all the fifth and sixth graders in two selected schools were screened. 58 of them received a score that was indicative of psychosomatic disorder. From whom 50 were willing to participate in the research، were then randomly divided into two groups being test and control. The test group read and discuss mentally engaging stories، Philip’s number 2 and 3، for 12 one-hour weekly sessions in a community of philosophical inquiry under a trained teacher. After the sessions ended، again Achenbach youth self-report (YSR) was administered to determine the effect of participation in community of philosophical inquiry on psychosomatic disorders for both test and control groups. Results indicated that implementing the plan had significant effect on reducing the symptoms of psychosomatic disorders in the test group.