Philosophy and Childhood

The following paper was written in 1999, as the opening speech at the Hobart FAPCA (Federation of Australasian Philosophy for Children Associations now FAPSA) National Conference. I was, at the time, Chair of FAPCA. The keynote speaker at the conference was Professor Gareth Matthews from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and author of, among other books, The Philosophy of Childhood. As the paper was written as a speech, and not as an academic article, I did not cite all the points made in full academic mode. Rather, for publication in Critical and Creative Thinking, I added a list of further reading which gives details for all the articles and books mentioned in the speech. At the time, I had just completed my PhD (the thesis is cited in the further reading), and taken up the position of International Baccalaureate Coordinator at The Friends’ School in Hobart. Subsequently in 2001, a revised and abridged version of the thesis was published by Routledge under the title Philosophical Discussion in Moral Education, and readers who are interested in following up some of my points made in the paper can find more detail there.