TITLE:
Students’ Views about Their Participation in a Philosophy Program
AUTHORS:
Renia Gasparatou, Marida Ergazaki
KEYWORDS:
Philosophy Sessions, Philosophy for/with Children, High School, Phenomenological Study
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.6 No.8,
May
19,
2015
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.