Students’ Views about Their Participation in a Philosophy Program

Renia Gasparatou, Marida Ergazaki

Department of Educational Sciences & Early Childhood Education, University of Patras, Patras, Greece.

DOI: 10.4236/ce.2015.68075                

Abstract

This paper reports on a phenomenological study that aims at exploring students’ own perception of their participation in a “Philosophy for/with Children” program. The program was comprised of eight philosophy sessions designed for stimulating interesting and fairly disciplined discussions. The implementation of the program took place at a village high school in a rural part of west Greece, with 16 teenager students (age 14 - 16). The students gave us individual semi-structured post-interviews concerning (a) the expectations they had from the program, (b) their experience from it, (c) their understanding about its purpose and outcomes, and (d) their suggestions for possible changes with regard to it. The qualitative analysis of students’ interviews showed that they had a very positive view of the program, as thoroughly discussed in the paper.

Keywords

Philosophy Sessions, Philosophy for/with Children, High School, Phenomenological Study

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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