Dialogue, as a communication form characterized by its commitment to inclusiveness and rationality, has long been advocated by educators as a mechanism for helping students become better thinkers. Unfortunately, numerous claims about the educational potential of participating in dialogue have not resulted in substantial changes in classroom practices. Studies have consistently shown that in today's schools the dominant discourse remains largely monologic. In this article, we present a testable theory of change that suggests how sociocultural processes in a dialogic classroom influence students' development. We identify and discuss three learning outcomes of dialogic teaching, including epistemological understanding, argument skills, and disciplinary knowledge. We then critically review empirical research related to the proposed theory, highlighting unsolved questions, inconsistencies, and directions for future studies. Finally, we focus on the implications of the proposed integrated theory and reviewed research for teachers and their language use in a classroom.

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As conceived by founders Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp, Philosophy for Children is a humanistic practice with roots in the Hellenistic tradition of philosophy as a way of life given to the search for meaning, in American pragmatism with its emphasis on qualitative experience, collaborative inquiry and democratic society, and in American and Soviet social learning theory. The programme has attracted overlapping and conflicting criticism from religious and social conservatives who don't want children to question traditional values, from educational psychologists who believe certain kinds of thinking are beyond children of certain ages, from philosophers who define their discipline as theoretical and exegetical, from critical theorists who see the programme as politically compliant, and from postmodernists who see it as scientistic and imperialist. The paper is written as a dialogue in order to illustrate the complex interactions among these normative positions. Rather than respond to particular criticisms in depth, I indicate the general nature of my position regarding them and provide references to published material where they have been made and responded to over the past 40 years.

Douglas Walton's taxonomy of dialogue types facilitates a normative analysis of different types of dialogue practiced in Philosophy for Children. The overarching goal of a dialogue in Philosophy for Children is for the participants to arrive at reasonable philosophical judgments. This goal determines the types and uses of dialogue appropriate to P4C, including five of Walton's types-negotiation, information-seeking, persuasion, inquiry and deliberation. P4C practice would be enhanced if participants and facilitators gave attention to the norms of the various types of dialogue they engaged in.