Abstract:

The Philosophy for Children method (P4C) is a philosophical approach to learning and teaching that enables students to think with others and to think for themselves. It can be explained also as a didactic method invented by Lipman (1970s) based on building the community of inquire via critical, creative and caring thinking development (3-C thinking). The P4C has significant positive impact upon teachers and pupils´ creativity, builds the confidence of them and encourages and develops their capacity for independent and critical thinking and powers of reasoning. The study analyzes the inter-gender differences of the classroom climate perception in the Slovak schools by self-report measure, Classroom Climate Perception (CCP, Mellibruda, 1996 adapted to the Slovak conditions by Zelina, 2006). The CCP assesses four factors: sincerity, understanding, award and acceptance belonging among the most important factors for effective communication and community of inquiry support to open and begin the process of philosophizing with children at schools nowadays. The classroom climate perception was assessed of freshmen students, 1st year students of two high schools in the Central region of Slovakia (N=183, Mage=15.1, /SD=.5/; 62% of females) after two months of being a part of a new school community. The only statistically significant difference was estimated in sincerity in favor to boys. The study emphasizes the importance of socio-emotional well-being of the students for the process of critical thinking development P4C and performance and behavior especially of boys in education, and also the gender inequalities within the Philosophy for children method implementation. The study is a part of a research project KEGA 028UMB-4/2021.

Keywords:

School climate, gender, P4C.