School Children as Agents of Change : Raising up Critical Thinking and Judgement in the Early Years

This edited volume promotes the capacity for critical thinking and judgement in primary school-aged children in the face of the challenges that schools encounter in today’s society. Foregrounding critical thinking and judgement as essential capacities for children to develop, each chapter offers a space for reflection on the formation of the ability to think and judge in primary school.

While presenting a robust conceptual and foundational framework, chapters focus on the educational-didactic practices deemed most authoritative due to their impact on, and their innovative qualities within, the educational landscape today.

Themes affecting schools in both the global north and south are discussed, such as social relationships, children’s voices, life skills and digital education, well-being and health, as well as matters of social plurality, inequalities and discrimination, ecology, global economy and the decolonising of education from various international perspectives. Foregrounding real-world experience within the education system, this book will be of relevance to researchers, scholars and post-graduates in the fields of philosophy of education, moral education and child development.

It will also be of interest to pre- and in-service primary education practitioners.