We invite you to attend a PhD presentation by PhD Candidate,Baptiste Roucau, School of Education. Baptiste’s supervisors are Andrea Milligan and Sondra Bacharach.

Title: The inquiry incarnate: A multi-method qualitative study of children’s embodied and emotional responses to the Community of Philosophical Inquiry.

Abstract: What roles do the body and the emotions play in young people’s collaborative thinking? Drawing on educational psychology, sociology, and Philosophy for Children (P4C) scholarship, my research will explore the affective and corporeal dimensions of children’s Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CPI) dialogues. In line with feminist and pragmatist conceptions of bodies and emotions as fundamentally relational and situated, I will examine how children both experience and express their corporeality and emotionality—I will consider both intra- and interpersonal dynamics. Additionally, my study will take place across two research sites—a primary school in New Zealand and an informal educational organisation in Canada—in order to investigate the importance of pedagogical settings, as well as the different strategies used by educators to support young people’s affective and corporeal engagement in CPI dialogues. I propose a multi-method qualitative study that combines interviews and video-recorded observations with participatory, creative methods to better understand the multiple layers of embodiment and emotion present in the CPI, while also honouring children’s voices—an ethical imperative in P4C (Murris, 2013) and in childhood research at large (Greene & Hill, 2005). In conclusion, I will attempt to make the case that the philosophical and pedagogical implications of my research are not limited to the rarefied world of P4C, but can also inform the ongoing reconstruction of prevailing understandings of childhood, embodiment and emotion in education.

Please arrive on time, to avoid disruption for the presenter and other attendees.