In this paper, I will explore the role of care in nursing and nursing education. I will examine ethics of care as proposed by theorists Jean Watson, Nell Noddings, and Mathew Lipman. Although engaging, Watson’s theory of care is underappreciated and lacks practical pedagogical application. Noddings and Lipman supply the missing pedagogical practice in their strategies to implement caring thinking in the classroom. Lipman stresses interactive strategies as effective techniques for teaching caring and caring thinking. Philosophical inquiry provides an ideal way for nursing students in seminars and clinical post-conference, to examine the role of caring in contemporary nursing. The community of inquiry holds promise as a practical strategy to infuse more caring into nursing education

There may be a possibility that young women find it difficult to express their female ways of knowing and gain equal public representation. This leads us to reflect on a possible gap between a well developed theory of justice in P4C and pedagogical practices of social influence. In this paper I attempt to reflect on these questions provisionally, and suggest an initial theoretical framework for discussing such issues within the P4C movement. First, I report some personal and social narratives that were described by individual writers. These narratives reflect, mostly, female authors’ personal histories from childhood to adulthood, and how their carrier choices were influenced by prevailing constructed gender roles. Second, I discuss the theory of the Community of Inquiry (CI) and examine the possibilities for self transformation and women liberation that this practice allows. Third, I introduce Hannah Arendt’s argument that education should not attempt to present the future of the human condition as finite and resolved.

This paper explores prevailing notions about gender, based on African realities, and their possible implications for the education of girls. Without ignoring the basic parameters articulated by European and American feminist movements, this paper takes the stand that an understanding of gender in the context of African realities is fundamentally connected to questions about the cultural identity, social experience, interests, and priorities of the purveyors of feminist knowledge or feminists positions across the African continent. The main goal is to render the concept of gender, and subsequently girl-child education, within an approach that is more realistic and consistent with the history of women vis-à-vis their station in present-day, postcolonial Africa.

This paper testifies the crucial importance of Philosophy for Children for Emotional Growth. It begins by establishing the open ended character of emotional processes, showing how feminist philosophers have criticized the fixed conception of negative valence of certain emotions, and how, ultimately, the normative structure of emotions is open to modification. Then, it shows how talking about emotional processes and emotional situations can foster emotional growth once we understand that the acquisition of language and emotional vocabulary is one way to best capture the openended character of emotions. Finally, attention is turned to Philosophy for Children. Taking as an illustration the emotion of hope and its importance to inquiry, the paper concludes by examining in what way P4C both benefits and reinforces the previous insights about emotion theory.

Philosophy for Children educators facilitate awareness, wonder, and the practice of philosophy. I consider that this is a process of a ‘turning-towards’ philosophy. Through a consideration of this process in three works of Western philosophy; Plato’s Symposium; Augustine’s Confessions; and Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity; I will conclude that aspects of desire permeate the process of turning towards philosophy. I then focus on a reading of Luce Irigaray to elucidate desire within philosophy. This feminist reading of desire can become a pedagogical focus for Philosophy for Children educators.

This paper will outline some of the ways in which traditional pedagogies facilitate ‘masculine’ ideals of thinking, while excluding and denigrating the ‘feminine’. It will be shown that unlike traditional pedagogies, P4C reconstructs the gendered dualisms (e.g. mind/body, reason/emotion, individual/community) that form the basis of traditional gender stereotypes. Consequently, P4C reconstructs traditional gender stereotypes and challenges the traditional gendering of school subjects, which contributes to the underperformance of girls in math and science and the devaluation of the ‘feminine’ arts and humanities. It will also be shown that P4C may be particularly valuable for overcoming the current concerns about the educational performance of boys, especially in relation to literacy and behavioral problems.

For the feminist movement to be effective, certain requirements are crucial. This entails a re-evaluation of the feminist movement’s language, approach, myths, and politics. Clearly, language must take on more a substantive definition, specifically, a fundamental understanding of economically disadvantaged and/or women of color’s plight. If prudence is shown vis-à-vis the will to demonstrate an awareness of all women’s plights; and, as Celie from The Color Purple posited, “a voice say to everything listening,” the way will be found to ensure the enfranchisement of all women because - IF THE WILL IS ABSENT, THE WAY WILL NOT BE FOUND!

The writings of Simone Weil support a feminist philosophy of education that locates freedom in self-determined creative work within contexts of necessity. In particular, Weil’s discussion of Force, the Good, Work, Method and Time provide criteria for a feminist philosophy of education, in terms of educational ends and means. Philosophy for Children is relevant to each of these themes, in various ways.