Integrating Philosophy with Children into the Social Studies Courses

Abstract

Philosophy with children aims to teach children to think for themselves and make informed choices. The objective here is to develop children's reasoning skills by enabling them to reflect on thinking while discussing concepts that are important to them. This study examines the act of philosophical thinking, the importance of children doing philosophy, and the implementation of philosophy in schools, especially its integration into the Social Studies course. This study also explains the benefits of philosophy with children for students and teachers and the facilitating effect of these benefits on the realisation of the objectives of the Social Studies course through sample applications. While some case studies were discussed with the students and sections of philosophical questioning were presented, a few of them were merely given as case studies. Thus, we believe that integrating children and philosophy with the Social Studies course will be effective in terms of the learning outcomes that students need.