Conference Agenda

The paper is based on the research project "Mindplay- conversation for learning". The main research question was: how can teachers use dialogue methods with young children to enhance children’s interest and participation in dialogue? The main objective of the project was that teachers learned about different conversation methods to use with children, which could improve their ability and skills in using conversational practice in teaching. Secondly, to study the effect of these methods on daily practice and the children’s use of language in discussions as a tool for thinking collectively which might inspire them to use language effectively in everyday learning processes. The research project spanned two years and involved teachers, assistants, and children aged 2-5 years old. The project was a collaboration between one preschool and the University of Akureyri in Iceland.

The theoretical framework of the research is based on Philosophy for Children (P4C) and dialogue for learning. P4C is concerned with cognitive development in the context of shared inquiry through dialogue with philosophical topics. Research has shown that to develop language and conversation skills, young children need many different opportunities to talk and have conversations with peers and adults that enhance their skills in thinking, reasoning, communication, and collaboration. With the P4C approach, children explore and listen to stories which increases their curiosity and empowers them to participate in the dialogue. Furthermore, children’s literature is purposefully selected to contain “philosophical hooks” designed to inspire inquiry among children (Lipman, 1985; Mercer, 2000; Sapere, 2014; The Education Endowment Foundation, 2015).

Philosophising with children in the form of implementing the Community of Inquiry (Matthews 1984) is a practice supporting democratic discourse (Weber 2013) and is increasingly used in schools such as preschools and daycare centers. Internationally this is often realised according to Lipman's concept. Content impulses for this are provided by short philosophical stories, such as "Harry Stottlemeier's discovery" (Lipman 2009).

In addition, picture books and picture cards are increasingly analysed for their potential for philosophising with children and are also used in practice. Still little use has been made of digital stimuli to initiate philosophical conversations. In October 2022, in a preliminary study with a group of 20 students, the first own digital picture impulses for philosophising with 5 to 6-year-olds were developed; these are small, animated films of 3-4 minutes. Due to current political developments, the content focused on the topics of friendship and enmity as well as peace and war. The aim of the development of these didactic miniatures was, on the one hand, that the students themselves could dive deeply into the content of the discussion of these topics and, on the other hand, that they could gain initial experience in philosophical discussion with children and reflect on this. In addition to the self-developed film, the students selected an analogue image stimulus, which they also integrated into the conversation, in order to also look at whether the type of medium (digital or analogue) has an influence on the quality of the conversation in the analysis of the conversations. In total, four films were developed and six interviews were conducted with the children.

The moral dimension of teaching is ever-present and as part of teachers' professional ethical approach, it often remains unspoken and thus elusive. In addition, the ambiguity is increased by the fact that ethics in teaching practice is perceived in many ways (Cliffe & Solvason, 2022). Perceptions of right and wrong quickly become problematic and teachers rather need to deal with ethics as a matter with lots of shades of gray (Cliffe & Solvason, 2022). Apart from the fact that ethics has many nuances, it is also unclear what the teacher's ethical responsibilities include. Studies show how teachers experience a tension between taking responsibility for the children based on knowledge goals and taking care of them morally (Jepson Wigg, 2021; Walls, 2022). Another difficulty in teachers’ professional ethics is that various demands from students (Tielman et al., 2022) or parents might cause value-based tensions and external regulations might cause moral distress (Ribers, 2018). Actually, Dahl (2017) questions cooperation with parents because they sometimes undermine teachers' ability to take ethical responsibility for students.

A value-neutral teaching is challenged by the fact that teachers must guide the children to a democratic approach in practice (Castner et al., 2017) and speak for humanity (Chen et al., 2017). Teachers' embodiment of democratic approach is favoured over a neoliberal accountability (Castner et al., 2017). Thus, the teachers' moral endeavour in teaching is subject to many different interests that require taking a stand, but it is unclear how this happens. The complexity and the fact that ethics in teaching often remains a tacit knowledge and a hidden agenda (Baker-Doyle et al., 2018) for teachers’ actions in ethical dilemmas (Chen et al., 2017) justifies a study aiming to contribute with more knowledge about how teachers in preschool and Elementary school perceive ethics when they encounter children in teaching. The research questions are:

1. What characterizes the teachers’ ethical responsibility?
2. How is ethical responsibility expressed in teaching?

Within the research field, studies show that teachers' perceived responsibility for the children in teaching relates to expressed ethical codes in several ways. French-Lee and Dooley (2015) identified that teachers in preschool developed their moral reasoning in relation to a current ethical code through collegial discussion about ethical dilemmas. Another way of relating to codes is to depart from them when caring for the children requires it (Fenech & Lotz, 2018). Social justice is according to Fenech and Lotz (2018) the main guiding light for early childhood teachers' ethical responsibility and takes precedence over formulations in ethical codes. The attention to ethical codes in research has its origins in the importance of professional ethics as a basis for the teaching profession's status as a profession (Kuusisto & Tirri, 2021). In a Swedish context, the teachers’ unions have formulated an ethical code but it is quite unknown to most teachers. The code has been criticized in research for several reasons (Cronqvist, 2020), among other things for not being based on research and conflation of concrete and abstract levels. Ethics is often related to religious beliefs and this relationship could cause teachers in a distinctly secularized country like Sweden to differ in their view of the importance of religion, but at the same time, the research field clearly shows that more knowledge about how teachers understand their ethical responsibility in meeting children in teaching is an international affair. The lack of knowledge about teachers' professional identity and actions in relation to the ethical dimension of teaching is a common international problem.