Education for democracy: Using the classroom community of inquiry to develop habits of reflective judgement in South African schools

This paper reports on an initiative to introduce, not the Philosophy for Children (P4C) programme itself, but its principles and some of its practices, into South African schools. The paper points out the conceptual links between P4C and the understanding of human development that underpins the new South African curriculum, and provides a brief review of the current context of education in South Africa. Thereafter it explains briefly why it was necessary to create new materials rather than simply using the original P4C stories and manuals. This is followed by a description of the new materials together with some illustrative extracts. Finally the paper gives an account of efforts to obtain empirical evidence regarding the impact of the materials and indicates possible future developments.