Philosophy for Children was born in the late 1960s, delivered by Matthew Lipman, and soon after, with the cooperation of Ann Margaret Sharp and others, developed into a full-fledged K-12 program. In 1985, with the expansion of the movement from the US to several other countries, the International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with Children (ICPIC) was created. ICPIC organizes International Conferences every two years, with the goal of expanding the movement into different countries. Its main objectives are: to promote, coordinate and disseminate research and relationships among people and institutions interested in promoting philosophical inquiry with children; to support initiatives to introduce philosophy in primary and secondary schools around the world; to stimulate the creation of centers that promote philosophical inquiry with children. The eighteen ICPIC conferences convened to date have taken place in countries as diverse as Denmark, Brazil (twice), Mexico (twice), Taiwan, Austria, Spain (twice), Australia, Iceland, England, Bulgaria, Israel, Italy, South Korea, South Africa and Canada. The nineteenth will take place in the lovely city of Bogota Colombia, between July 24 and 26, 2019, sponsored by UNIMINUTO University and several other national universities and research institutes.

At the nineteenth Congress, proposals were presented for papers, for workshops and for posters. The present Dossier contains 19 of the 136 accepted papers. They were initially approved by two reviewers in order to be presented at the Conference, then submitted again to our double blind peer review process in order to qualify for inclusion in present Dossier. Eleven articles are in English, five in Spanish and three in Portuguese. Among those in Portuguese is "Intersubjectivity: A Look at the Philosophical Research Community" by Paula Alexandra Vieira, which is the winner of the 2019 ICPIC Award for Excellence in interpreting Philosophy for/with Children. All papers have abstracts in English, Spanish and Portuguese. In the following paragraphs we’ll offer a short review of each paper, beginning with the English texts.

“Philosophical Inquiry with Indigenous Children: An Attempt to Integrate Indigenous Forms of Knowledge in Philosophy for/with Children” de Peter Paul E. Elicor offers a consistent argument for integrating indigenous forms of knowledge into Philosophy for/with Children theory and practice. The author claims that it is important to treat indigenous forms of knowledge not only as topics for philosophical dialogue but as also as presuppositions of philosophical activity itself. As he shows, indigenous forms of knowledge can contribute deeply to philosophical inquiry with children in at least two dimensions: a) epistemology, where indigenous patterns of thinking counterweigh the dominant analytic-representational epistemology of philosophy for children, and b) pedagogy, where indigenous values of interconnectedness, situatedness and relationality can strongly enrich the life of the community of inquiry. This paper makes a significant contribution to a heretofore-unconsidered dimension of philosophical inquiry with children.

Next is “Ecosocial Citizenship Education: Facilitating Interconnective, Deliberative Practice and Corrective Methodology for Epistemic Accountability” by Gilbert Burgh and Simone Thornton. The authors explore, in a clear and focused way, the potential of the concept of ‘cultural citizenship’ to put into question the understanding of citizenship that permeates Western liberal discourse. Cultural citizenship is important mainly because it emphasizes citizenship as an interconnective, unstable and continual learning process. Burgh and Thornton authors argue that, in order to realize the promise of cultural citizenship, it is necessary to clear some obstacles created by the privileging of a dominant epistemic position-a claim that sets up interesting connections with the first paper, which also seeks a democratic basis for epistemic authority.

Laurance Splitter, in “Identity and Populism Begone! The Role of Philosophy in Healing a Shattered and Divided World”, focuses on what he considers two significant challenges to current democracies: populism and tribalism. Splitter offers some clarifying concepts regarding identity and the collective/individual dichotomy, and tries to show that such a binary construction is incompatible with true democracy. He proposes an epistemological and ethical democratic context in which the concepts of person, narrative and dialogue overcome, philosophically and politically, this dichotomy.

In “Rethinking Consensus in the Community of Philosophical Inquiry: A Research Agenda” Kei Nishiyama questions what he considers to be a common misconception of consensus as something that ought to be avoided. He offers the notion of “meta-consensus,” which involves non-universal forms of consensus (those in which there is agreement on the value of opponents’ views, if not their final judgments) in order to make “philosophical progress.” Nishiyama offers a few examples involving Japanese students to show how meta-consensus can contribute to make a community inquiry philosophical. In “Encouraging the Teacher-Agent: Resisting the Neo-Liberal Culture in Initial Teacher Education,” Rhiannon Love argues that supporting the figure of the ‘teacher-agent’ is essential to teacher education. The teacher-agent resists the neo-liberal educational culture, fosters social conscience in children, and guides young people toward a more inclusive, creative and democratic education and society, encouraging their identity as citizen-agents. In order to attain those goals, Love combines Philosophy for Children (P4C), Rights Respecting Education and Slow Pedagogy. Teacher-agents would also help.

“Teacher and Learner Perspectives on Philosophical Discussion: Uncertainty as Challenge and Opportunity” by Kerstin Michalik shows how children can impact primary school teachers’ views of themselves as educators, their relationship to teaching, and their personal development. She argues that what children tend to consider the most meaningful aspect of their philosophical practice is the opportunity to think together in an open-ended way. These testimonies, Michalik claims, suggest that children, to the extent they do not consider uncertainty a lack but rather a value, are in fact teaching their teachers new dispositions and beliefs.

The main purpose of “The Richness of Questions in Philosophy for Children” by Dina Mendonça and Magda Costa-Carvalho is to argue that questioning is the central activity of philosophical inquiry with children, and what unites all approaches to the practice of doing philosophy with children. Asking questions, they suggest, is much more than a mere methodological tool; in fact it is a central dimension of thinking and inquiry and, therefore, a fundamental to the philosophical experiences of and with children.

In “Philosophical Discussions with Children: An Opportunity for Experiencing Open-Mindedness” Johanna Hawken presents the results of a seven-year research project conducted in Romainville, France. She analyses the different thinking skills and dispositions developed by children through philosophical dialogue, more specifically the disposition of open-mindedness. The paper defines the concept as a two-dimensional--cognitive and ethical-attitude, and analyses its emergence in philosophical discussions. She also studies its more general role in the practice of philosophy. The article concludes that philosophical discussions are excellent opportunities for children to experience open-mindedness as a crucial thinking skill and ethical posture.

Marina Santi, in “Collaborative Problem-Solving in Citizenship Education: A Philosophical Escape in the Age of Competencies” puts into question the idea of the community of inquiry as merely a “learning environment” to develop students collaborative problem-solving skills and to acquire the know-how needed for the job market. According to Santi, the community of inquiry is much more than an economic training ground: in fact it is a system of collective capabilities that converts personal endowments into real faculties and opportunities for agency. Thus, philosophy for/with children contributes to building what the economist and philosopher Armatya Sen described as “flourishing communities.”

“Making a Circle: Building a Community of Philosophical Enquiry in a Post-Apartheid, Government School in South Africa“ by Rose-Anne Reynolds is an attempt to imagine a school in which the human subject is not the most important actor, realized through documentation of what happens when-per community of philosophical inquiry-students are grouped in a circle rather than rows. In this particular South African public school, through a post-human perspective, the author shows how the novel experience of the circle led to emergent forms of interaction that implicitly challenged hierarchy and exclusivism.

In “Philosophising with Young Children as a Language-Promoting Principle,” Katrin Alt focuses on the effect of philosophizing with children on children’s language development and on the speech acts of teachers and children in philosophical enquiries. Alt describes a six month research project, the main findings of which are that children developed significantly higher language ability when exposed to philosophy, mainly in two areas: general performance in discussion, and use of more sophisticated connectors. The study also shows evidence that when pre-school teachers ask philosophical questions of their students, the linguistic complexity of their responses increases.

“Intersubjetividade: um olhar sobre a comunidade de investigação filosófica” by Paula Alexandra Vieira begins the series of texts in Portuguese. Her essay is the winner of the 2019 ICPIC Award for Excellence in Interpreting Philosophy for Children. Vieira’s paper is an illustration of the fertility of the concept of community of philosophical inquiry through viewing it in the context of Jürgen Habermas’s notion of the “ideal speech community”-a concept that potentiates the forces of communicative and motivational rationality that keep people in an attitude of communicative action. Vieira shows the fertility of the notion of communicative rationality by connecting it with relevant authors in philosophical inquiry with children, such as Ann Sharp, David Kennedy and Giuseppe Ferraro.

“Metamorfose literária: por leituras que gerem experiências de pensamento nas aulas de filosofia”, by Jair Miranda Paiva and Adriana Gusmão Antunes presents a reflection on the place of literature and reading in the experience of philosophical thinking. The research was carried out with young children in a public school in the city of São Mateus, in the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil. The text identifies philosophy as a paradoxical presence in school that makes it possible to grasp and be grasped by childhood epistemologies, which are already present in educational settings where children are present.

“Infância e invisibilidade: por uma pedagogia do oculto” by Daniel Gaivota Contage seeks to consider the question: "What is hidden in school?" But, unlike what the dominant philosophical tradition has made of this question, it is precisely in the obscure, hidden and not visible aspects of the school that is his point of interest. Through readings of Deleuze and Foucault, Contage denounces the movement of interdiction and cover-up thrown imposed the school, and affirms the power of the non-visible forces at school-one of which is childhood itself, considered as " one of those powers that allows us to keep the world hidden, encrypted, and protected from the forced logic of the visible."

Texts in Spanish begin with “Peter Pan: el líder y sus seguidores. una experiencia de filosofía con niños” by Esther Charabati, who explores the possibilities of philosophical inquiry with elementary school students following an experience with the classical novel Peter Pan. Charabati argues for the power of literary works to: a) detonate reflection and debate; b) put the relationships between children into question; c) enhance participants’ imagination; and d) exercise the problematizing function of the question.

“Reflexiones filosóficas entre madres adolescentes víctimas de maltrato infantil” presents findings from a research project led by Sonia Rosario Barraza Flores and Homero López Moreno at a community-based center for family development in Durango, México, dedicated to helping teenage mothers who are themselves victims of child abuse. The authors present the changes in language and thinking that followed on the establishment of an ongoing community of philosophical inquiry in the center. Interviews with participants pointed to a significant cognitive change as a result of the philosophy sessions, testifying to a powerful impact on the ethical and moral thinking of adolescent mothers participating in the project.

In “Sobre la necesidad de una filosofía para/con madres y padres en el programa de filosofía para/con niñas y niños,” Juan Carlos Sarmiento argues for the practice of CPI among parents of children who are practicing it, claiming that they are fundamental actors in the latter’s success. Sarmiento also argues for other activities that contribute to the empowerment of children, including playful exercises in the development of non-orthodox and informal logics and the use of classic literature for children and youth as stimuli for philosophical inquiry.

In “El lugar de la deliberación en la Filosofía para Niños de Lipman”, Carmina Shapiro interrogates some basic notions provided by M. Lipman in his Philosophy for Children Program in terms of their relevance for political philosophy, including the concepts of deliberation, community, democracy, dialogue, and philosophical examination. She also analyzes other approaches to political philosophy, especially the Rawlsian, in terms of their contribution to the notion of democracy and its role in educational theory and practice.

In “La filosofía con niños como experiencia transformadora. una propuesta en organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro” José Barrientos-Rastrojo argues that, when practiced with groups at risk for social exclusion, philosophical methodology should not place so much emphasis on critical thinking skills and more on what he calls "experiential reason," a concept related to Lipman's “caring thinking.” Barrientos-Rastrojo describes the work carried out at the University of Seville under the title "experiential philosophy, of which he identifies three main characteristics: a) the creation of exercises designed to trigger deep & meaningful experience; b) the fostering of the transformative capacities of children; c) the promotion of spaces in school, home and community for deep experience and transformation.

As editors of this Dossier, we offer these papers as further contributions to the already solid and lively field of research and scholarship that is CPI theory and practice. In encountering them, the reader has the opportunity to find her own voice in interlocution with the texts. This opportunity represents, we think, the ongoing strength of our field, and we hope that the new emerging voices that speak on these pages will open space for other new voices, again and again.