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TRE. .

Theory and Research in EducationCopyright 2008, sage publications, www.sagepublications.com

vol 6(3) 323336 ISSN 1477-8785 DOI: 10.1177/1477878508095587

The status of the subject in the classroomcommunity of inquiry

marjan s imencEducational Research Institute, Ljubljana

abstract

This article deals with the issue of how to establish an authentic community ofinquiry. I propose the introduction of a distinction between two stages of the

community of inquiry: the stage of an emergent community of inquiry and the

stage of an established community of inquiry. Further on, I propose an analysis of

the structure of intentions and goals in the community of inquiry using Elsters

concept of states that are essentially by-products. I suggest that the position of the

subject be defined on the basis of the aforementioned two stages of the commu-

nity: in the first stage, there is a community consisting of equal individuals who

voluntarily engage in dialogue,whereas in the second stage there is a subject who

is not engaged in dialogue, but arises in it at a certain point. It seems that it is the

internalised dialogical community, in which the participants are equal and strive for

clarity and transparency, that generates the necessary space for the particular

foundation of the subject to show itself the particular foundation that is not yet

captured in reflection and that defies articulation in dialogue.

keywords authenticity, community of inquiry, philosophy for children, subject,

states that are essentially by-products

The Symposium on Philosophy for Children in the November2007 issue of

this journal provides a good overview of the current state of development of

the philosophy for children movement.The author of the editorial notes that

contributions to the symposium are marked by a certain duality and definesthis duality by linking it to two major authorities in the field of children

encountering philosophy, Matthew Lipman and Gareth B.Matthews.The first

two articles are related to Lipman, the rest are more closely related to

Matthewsapproach.The first two articles (Splitter, 2007; Laverty and Gregory,

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2007) extend the scope of philosophy for children and present its core the

community of inquiry (COI) as a general working method in the classroom.

This is the result of the development of the movement during the last 30

years, in the course of which it has become clear that youngsters engaging inphilosophy in a community of inquiry can have numerous positive effects that

schools are striving for, e.g. in the field of moral education, democracy

education and citizenship education.The development of the philosophy for

children agenda has thus resulted in a broader understanding of the commu-

nity of inquiry and applications of it beyond pure philosophy.1

The employment of the community of inquiry as a response to a growing

number of issues faced in contemporary education can give rise to the belief

that the COI can do almost anything.This belief is particularly strong because

its wide use and multitude of effects go hand in hand with more general

discussions of the COI, and the concept is consequently becoming increas-

ingly void of substance. On the one hand, this is legitimate since numerous

articles have been devoted to its content in the past, but on the other hand it

seems that, owing to the broader scope of application, special attention should

be paid to how extension of the COI to new fields and purposes affects its

content and functioning.

Laurance Splitters article Do the groups to which I belong make me me?

Reflections on community and identity, focuses on yet another application

of the COI using the COI to help youngsters in search of their personal

identity. In pursuing this topic, Splitter raises an important conceptual issue:what is the status of the subject in the community of inquiry? The basic thesis

of the article is that the COI can be a place for reflections on the emergent

sense of identity (Splitter, 2007: 263), which in the article is related to an

individuals membership in different groups.However,Splitter stresses that the

COI serves as a vital means to an end, and that end is the personal develop-

ment of its members (Splitter, 2007: 273), which means that the COI is not

just about getting to know oneself and reflecting on the consequences of

membership in various groups; it is also about changing and forming oneself.

The COI is in this sense all about the subject.2 In this article I will attempt a

further analysis of this dimension of the COI.

the teacher , the s tudents and the commun ity

When considering the relation between the community and the individual,

the starting point has traditionally been the fact that a class consists of the

students and the teacher.The aim of establishing a community of inquiry is to

achieve a dual shift of focus: not only the shift from the teacher to the stu-

dents, but another one namely the shiftfrom the individual to the community.

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When observing a discussion in a community of inquiry it sometimes truly

seems as if it is not an isolated individual, but rather the whole group that is

doing the thinking, so that each individual has a hard time keeping up with

what has evolved in the group. This is true with respect to both values andreflection.Values are given and slowly recognized by each individual student

as part of the basic framework of the community of inquiry. Reflection in

a sense takes place at the level of the Other of the group, so that both the

individual and the group as a whole have yet to reflectively capture it retro-

spectively. And it is perhaps this very emergent dynamic unity of heterogeneous

elements which makes the programme so effective: the story and the argu-

mentation, the group and the individual, the equality and non-equality, the

uncritical acceptance and the critical reflection, etc.

Reading more theoretically oriented texts, it may seem that the position of

the teacher in the community of inquiry is quite blurred, whereas other

discussions suggest that in the community of inquiry the teacher can assume

different positions, play various roles and perform a number of functions.

Marianne Cane distinguishes between three levels of the COI: the cognitive,

the emotional and the social level. She analyses the social level in terms of the

roles the members of the community can assume. This is nothing unusual,

since the basic distinction between the roles of facilitator and inquirer is a

common feature of most texts on the formation of the COI. However, the

author emphasizes the element of internal differentiation in the community

and additionally introduces a series of distinct roles, such as five productiveroles that all group members should eventually master (Cane, 2003: 12):

facilitator, proposer, supporter, critic and recorder. During the interaction,

participants might assume informal roles such as information giver, encourager,

information blocker. Expectations of other group members might give rise to

dramaturgical roles such as protagonist, antagonist, auxiliary, team member,

audience. Different stages of the problem solving process might give rise to

corresponding roles. Other sets of roles might also evolve, such as the critic,

the innovator, the second helper, the cautionary (Cane, 2003: 14).These roles

may stem from aspects of the work process as such or they may be the result

of the personality and personal preferences of the individuals involved in the

community. An exhaustive list of roles is largely a matter of interpretation.

Nevertheless, Cane stresses that, as a rule, particular roles appear in particular

contexts. It even seems that, in order for the group to be effective, it has to

successfully perform certain tasks, regardless of whether special team roles for

performing these tasks are explicitly established or not. It may well be that the

group is able to function more successfully if the roles are clearly defined and

if the members receive assistance in becoming aware of the role they are

playing without knowing and consciously adopting it. The position of the

Simenc:The subject in the classroom community of inquiry

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participants is even more complicated owing to the fact that the group

functions at several levels, i.e. at the intellectual, social and emotional level.

Roles emerge to meet the demands of all dimensions, resulting in a complex

interplay of conflicting roles (Cane, 2003: 16).The community is thus not simply a community of equal members, but at

least potentially a structured entirety of different roles. It is simultaneously struc-

tured in a number of different ways that sometimes coincide or partly overlap,or,

as is often the case, conflict.The transformation of a class into a community of

inquiry tends to result in the formation of various structures,perhaps even a hier-

archy of roles,which the participants may not even be aware of.This process actu-

ally encompasses three aspects: the production of a system of roles, the casting of

roles formed this way, and the process of learning and playing these roles.This

means that the COI is not immune to the internal hierarchy of roles and the

identification with the roles.The COI is thus not merely a realm of free inquiry,

but also a realm of expectation for the individual to assume or continue playing

a certain role and to internalize a set of qualities inherent to the role along with

a corresponding image of oneself.The COI, if not conducted carefully, may turn

out to be not only a realm of free inquiry, but also a realm of pressure and alien-

ation.Such a community of inquiry might be considered deviant,but that hardly

makes a difference.We must admit that this kind of deviance is something that

may well ensue from the process of establishing a COI.

the s p e c i f i c ro l e o f th e t e ache r

This of course does not mean that all expectations in the community are

suspect or that determining the position of participants in a community of

inquiry should be avoided at all cost.The crucial role the teacher plays in it

consists not only in facilitating the inquiry, but also in making sure the

community is formed in such a way that it is about inquiry and that it

becomes a true community of inquiry.The teacher therefore does not aim to

remain invisible in the group, but rather takes on an active role in getting the

community to develop a specific structure. Nobody makes this point better

than Susan Gardner in her article Inquiry is no mere conversation. Her

concern is that moving from teacher-centred towards child-centred education

might lead to the view that youngsters ought to be encouraged to develop

their natural interests and talent and hence that it is important to allow

children to do the talking and that adults listen (Gardner, 1995: 38). However,

all the teachers skills in leading the dialogue are worthless, unless a process is

established that is structured around the truth.The truth has to be the regu-

lative idea that guides the process.The community of inquiry is therefore not

a community. In the beginning it is actually almost a dictatorship:


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The novice facilitator must always keep in mind that her long-term goal is

to be much more than a facilitator. She must be a model in her passion for

truth, a dictator in her demands for excellence in reasoning, a philosophical

sensitizer in demonstrating a capacity to focus on the philosophically fruitful,and a leader in ensuring that direction is maintained.We will do novices no

small favour by letting them know at the outset that inquiry is no mere con-

versation, and that facilitation of inquiry is hard work! (Gardner, 1995: 47).

A community can function at different levels, but it is the level of inquiry

that must establish itself as the essential level. Everyone in the community can

be equal, yet the position of the teacher is very specific: it is up to her to make

sure that the COI is structured the way it needs to be. The structure, the

expectations and the roles as pertaining to inquiry are therefore not a source

of alienation, but rather a prerequisite for free inquiry in the established COI.

In this respect,Ross Phillips notes that the specific position of the teacher may

lead to conflicts which prevent the community from achieving all the goals it

is believed to be achieving. In his article,Motivation and the goal of inquiry,

he sets out three types of intentions:

your goals as a teacher in introducing and sustaining philosophy in your

classroom

your students goals in doing philosophy

the goal(s) of your classroom community of inquiry (Phillips, 1997: 22).

When introducing philosophy for children, the teacher has various positiveeffects in mind. She introduces philosophy for the sake of the children and

thus uses it in an instrumental way.The goal of the students should consist in

finding examples, giving reasons, defining concepts, etc.These two sets of goals

are generally known, but according to Phillips not enough attention is paid to

the idea that the community of inquiry might have its own goals and interests

separable from those of its members (Phillips, 1997: 22).The goal of the COI

is just what Susan Gardner identifies: discovering the truth. Another thing

needs to be added here. For the community to aim for this goal, the teacher

must have this goal in view in leading the community.Yet, first and foremost

this goal must be pursued by the students, for otherwise all the aforemen-tioned intellectual skills have no meaning for them. The COI offers almost

the only moment in the curriculum when what is being undertaken is

authentic investigation (Phillips, 1997: 23), and the key strength of authenti-

city is its ability to motivate students. Without the dimension of authentic

investigation, which also makes the position of the students authentic, students

in class would just be observers to COI lessons rather than participants.

How can we go about considering the relations within the plurality of

intentions described above? The aforementioned intentions of students i.e.


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finding examples, giving reasons, defining concepts, etc. can be viewed as

sub-intentions of a broader intention to search for the truth.What about the

intentions of the teacher? What is the relation between those intentions and

the goal of classroom community of inquiry (Phillips, 1997: 22)? Certainaspects of the teachers position and intentions can be explained with the

concept of states that are essentially by-products.

s tate s that are e s s ent ial ly by-products

The concept of states that are essentially by-products is introduced by Jon

Elster in his book Sour Grapes (1985). Using this concept, he tries to highlight

the effects of our actions that cannot be achieved intentionally because, as

soon as we set them out as goals to be achieved,our very wish to achieve them

prevents us from doing so. It is, for example, impossible to willingly forget an

unpleasant event, because the very wish to forget it keeps bringing the event

back to our mind. The same goes for spontaneity, sleep, etc.This problem is

not limited to states marked by an absence of something (a plan, memory,

attention). By way of example, let us consider La Fontaines fable. A father

confides in his lazy sons that a treasure is buried in the field. The sons dig

through the entire field but find nothing.When they have almost given up and

concluded that their father had lied to them and that there was no treasure, it

occurs to them that, since they have already dug through the field, they might

as well plant something.That is what they do.They sell the produce and earna fortune. Finally, they understand their fathers message: there truly was a

treasure buried in the field.

The point of the story is that, in order for the sons to get the treasure, they

needed faith that the treasure was really there. If their father had told them

that working the field would earn them a fortune, the sons would have

laughed at his advice.They acquired the treasure owing to the very fact that

they (mistakenly) believed the treasure already existed. If the father had set

working the field as the immediate goal for them, they would never have

made the fortune, because the fortune could only arise as a by-product of

their efforts.And their insight that there is in fact a treasure in the field is theresult of the process they were engaged in. Renata Salecl connects Elsters

theory, that goals that can only be achieved indirectly while pursuing other

goals, to the field of education. She points out that it is also not possible to

teach children values in a direct manner by simply explaining a certain value

and asking them to accept it and act in accordance with it.What is possible

in conveying (a part of) knowledge is not possible in imparting values, so it

would be wrong to see a connection between the two and consider the


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formation of values and the communication of knowledge as parts of a

whole:

The paradox of this connection is that the purpose or aim of a certain activity can only

be transmission of knowledge but definitely not formation of values. Only the educa-

tional purposes of school which are directly realized through the curriculum, the way

subject matter is introduced, repetition, examination . . . can have formation of values as

a by-product. It is therefore absurd to say that the aim of school is formation of values

the aim of school can only be related to knowledge.Without this external aim (know-

ledge) there actually cannot be any formation of values. (Salecl, 1991: 136)

Naturally Salecls words should not be interpreted to mean that formation of

values must simply be separated from transmission of knowledge; the key point

of her reasoning is that, owing to its specific nature, formation of values cannot

be the aim of school at the same level and in the same way as transmission of

knowledge.The teacher cannot simply walk into a classroom and tell the students

that they will be dealing with this and that value that day,whereas she can certainly

do that when it comes to (certain) topics from the cognitive field. And that is

exactly what the job of the teacher in the COI consists in.Students simply focus

on an issue they are interested in at a certain point in time, and the effects of the

programme will come by themselves.They do not,however, come by themselves

to the teacher, who has to lead the discussion so that the students also learn what

they cannot directly intend to learn.This distribution of intentions defines the

position of the teacher in the COI. On the one hand, the teacher identifies

herself with the student who is interested in the problem under discussion. Onthe other hand, she must also identify with the structure of the COI and must

create an environment in which the real community can come as close as pos-

sible to the ideal community. In doing so, the teacher must also indirectly keep

in mind the by-products of the community, which are laid down in the pro-

gramming documents but are as such not an immediate goal of the COI.3 The

effectiveness of philosophy for children can in part be attributed to the fact that

it establishes a structure which produces intentionally unintended results.The

effectiveness of the programme also attests to the fact that knowledge (at least part

of it) is in its nature essentially a by-product.And this is in fact a unique irony: a

programme that declares itself as following the principles of clarity, explicitnessand reflection is in fact based on a certain vital ignorance.

two commun i t i e s : th e e me rge nt and th ee stabl i shed commun ity

A community can include a plurality of intentions, yet the multitude of inten-

tions is structured and has a certain order. In the community as a structure of


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intentions, one intention is superior and determines the position of all other

intentions.We can call it the intention of the community.The supremacy of this

intention is not given in advance, it needs to establish itself in the community,

yet on the other hand it is given in advance at least to the teacher trying toestablish a classroom COI.This gives rise to a certain duality in the community

as a structure of intentions: there is one structure known to the teacher and

given in advance and there is another one seen by external observers which is

established in the course of the actual process in the classroom.4

This yields a distinction between two communities: the community as an

ideal we strive for and the community as an actual state of affairs in which the

ideal is partially realized. From the point of view of community dynamic this

is a distinction between the emergent and the established COI.The emergent

community includes the beginning, the gradual formulation and implementa-

tion of working rules, the learning of various skills and the process of their

internalization. The established community coincides with the community

which is generally meant when the COI is referred to in theoretical and

programme texts. If texts about philosophy for children are not of a descriptive

nature, if they do not report on concrete developments in communities, they

typically describe a community which as it becomes clear in the course of

classroom work is actually an ideal. In the emergent COI, the teacher plays

a central role and an extraordinary effort on her part is required.The teacher

makes sure that students gradually begin to respect the rules that are constitu-

tive of the COI. It therefore makes sense to try to describe the community interms of the rules that need to be followed, the questions the teacher needs to

ask, as well as the skills and relations that need to be developed and the aims

the community must strive for.The community is described in terms of rules

that will later mostly be replaced by feeling and intuition.

In this first phase of the COI the teachers job is to guarantee that what is

happening is philosophically relevant. Empirically speaking, the discussion in

the beginning resembles a presentation of different opinions and it is up to the

teacher to facilitate progress toward knowledge and a disentangling of the

relevant from the irrelevant.The teacher must ensure that the process,however

chaotic it may seem at times, is headed towards a goal the teacher assures the

participants that what is happening makes sense.When Kennedy emphasizes

the dynamic and dialectical nature of the community and says,The structure

of the inquiry is chaotic, emergent, self-correcting, and self-organizing (2004:

216), he has in mind is the established COI. In the beginning, the transform-

ation of individuals into a community, and the transition from chaos to order

(and sometimes also from order to chaos), is the teachers responsibility.

When it comes to the status of the subject, the emphasis is initially on

including all the students in the community and making sure they internalize


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the rules and procedures of the joint quest for truth, which for them are

represented by and embodied in the teacher/facilitator. Any deviation from

the rules and lack of cooperation is a disturbance because it shows that a

student has not yet become a subject in the community or a subject of thecommunity. But when the dialogue in the community runs smoothly, the

participants are fully integrated in the community and have internalized its

rules so that the rules have become second nature.They have become a part

of the community just as the community has become a part of them.This is

actually one of the key points of the philosophy for children programme: the

subject in the community establishes itself as a dialogical subject when exter-

nal dialogue also becomes his internal dialogue.

However, it seems that a subject who is fully integrated into the commu-

nity and automatically follows the rules has himself become devoid of all

particular substance.5 He seems to be entirely absorbed in the intersubjective

relations in the community and flawlessly follows the rules that establish the

community as a community. Such a subject is hardly an individual any more,

but much more a part of a collective rationality that functions in accordance

with the rules of the community. In a sense, this is the ideal the community

strives for: pure investigation, conducted without any interruptions and bar-

riers, which the participants are all actively involved in and fully committed to.

When these conditions are met, the community becomes a collective subject

the individual is fully absorbed into.

Such a role for the subject can only be an ideal for the emergent COI.Once the community has been established, the position of the subject is

different.What had previously been an external disturbance that hindered the

establishment of the basic conditions for the functioning of the community

has now become an internal feature which is no longer a disturbance but

rather a motor of the community. However, subjectivity as a productive

disturbance can only establish itself once the constitutive rules have been

adopted and the space has thus been created to clarify the realm of reflection

and to arrive, through the process of reflection, at the internal border of

understanding. At this stage, the investigation really does progress through

continual disruptions, so it can be said that at this stage a crisis is a sign that

true investigation has begun. Only at this stage does the radical position hold

true, that the COI is a place apart, where we have come together to experi-

ence this crisis of meaning (Kennedy, 2004: 778).

the i n e f f ab i l i ty o f th e sub j e ct

In Do the groups to which I belong make me me? Splitter (2007) considers

personal identity mostly in terms of membership in different groups. Certain


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groups are more of a burden on the subject because they come with plenty of

baggage. The community of inquiry, however, is said not to impose any

baggage. At a certain level this is true, but the COI nevertheless has a strong

impact on the subject.The subject is to turn into a critical thinker, and thismay potentially engender a radical personal transformation. It can be said that

the COI merely equips the subject with skills and habits or enables him to

become what is already implicit in his nature, but this does not change the

fact that from the point of view of certain communities the COI equips the

subject with baggage that becomes a way of being.

Splitters analysis of membership focuses on the element of participation in

different groups that brings with it certain baggage the subject is not aware of.

The COI provides the subject with an opportunity to reflect on these

memberships and thus opens up an additional dimension of the subject.The

subject is not only a member of a group, but can also be thoroughly commit-

ted and internally devoted to the group of which he is a member member-

ship in large groups gives his world a structure and meaning. Membership

produces a surplus that grants the subject depth.

This is how the subject is viewed by Charles Taylor.According to Taylor, it

is characteristic of a subject that he is engaged in dialogue with others, yet

what defines a person is also the fact that he is able to question whether he

really wants to be what he is at that point in time.Therefore, the evaluation

of our desires is essential to our notion of the self (Taylor, 1976: 287).The

evaluation of our fundamental desires and the specification of criteria used toevaluate those desires is no easy task, since fundamental criteria defy specifi-

cation. Our evaluation is based on an unstructured feeling and not so much

on clear criteria.Regarding this evaluation that essentially defines the subject,6

Taylor notes the following:

This radical evaluation is a deep reflection, and a self-reflection in a special sense: it is a

reflection about the self, its most fundamental issues, and a reflection which engages the

self most wholly and deeply. Because it engages the whole self without a fixed yardstick

it can be called a personal reflection . . . ; and what emerges from it is a self-resolution in

a strong sense, for in this reflection the self is in question; what is at stake is the defini-

tion of those inchoate evaluations which are sensed to be essential to our identity. (Taylor,1976: 299)

The depth of the subject is thus only partly accessible to the subject himself.

He can approach it, but can never reflectively capture it in its entirety.Taylor

notes that, in the era of the ethics of authenticity, an individuals identity is

inextricably linked to others: My discovering my identity doesnt mean that I

work it out in isolation but that I negotiate it through dialogue, partly overt,

partly internalised, with others (Taylor, 1991: 47). But the subject is never

entirely absorbed in dialogue.There is a part of the subject that may be the


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basis of dialogue, but nevertheless defies and evades it.The foundation of the

subject in itself is neither dialogical nor is it part of a community.

There is of course a certain boundary limiting the extent to which the

personal experience of an individual can become the centre of a dialogue. Itis not the aim of COI to be therapeutic. Yet there are also limits to the

exclusion of subjectivity in the form of internal experiences of individuals.To

students, the investigation of a problem comes in the form of an investigation

of their world, and the investigation of their world comes in the form of an

investigation of them in the world and of the world in them.The membrane

that separates the internal experience of an individual from the world is very

permeable. If the purpose of philosophical inquiry for students is to confront

and overcome discrepancies in their own thinking and living (Laverty,2003:35),

then the reference to the experience and subjective perception of the indi-

vidual is indispensable. In the transition from abstract language formulations

to the concrete experiences of an individual, experience exhibits a dual

nature. On the one hand it provides speech with content and it stimulates

reflection, yet on the other hand it defies articulation, halts dialogue, and

hinders the progress of the community.

The subject in his core is particular. In order for him to get to know him-

self, he needs space to express himself, to feel his way around, to experience

moments when he surprises himself when he discovers the alienness within

him. The subjects space thus appears to be a disturbance in the process of

reflection. Based on the dichotomy of the emergent/established communityof inquiry, the position of the subject can be defined as follows: in the begin-

ning, when the key task is to establish a community and engage the subject in

it, the particularity of the subject is disturbing. But in the established

community the appearance of the subjects particularity is a sign of authentic

dialogue and of an authentic community of inquiry.7

conclus ion

The duality of the contributions to the Symposium on Philosophy for Children is

representative of the philosophy for children movement. The role of thesubject and the rules established in the first two articles8 touch upon the

dimension of the programme that has seen widespread use, reflecting the

success of the philosophy for children movement and the use of the COI as a

method in other school subjects.This wider scope of application has produced

a tendency for the COI to become void of substance. As a result, there is a

pressing need for more research into the mechanisms of establishing a COI

and the role of the subject in it.And in order to ensure the authenticity of the

COI, it is of particular importance that the mediation between the general


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framework of the method and the concrete experience in the classroom fea-

tured in the second part of the symposium be conducted in the different fields

that the COI is used in.The discussion of the dynamic of subjectivity shows

that the authenticity of the dialogue in a COI is related to the position of thesubject in the community. If the subject in the COI is not given but rather

arises in the process, an authentic COI is also not something a teacher can

establish.The teacher can provide the conditions for it, but authentic investi-

gation will only be established once a subject has arisen in the process. In a

sense, the articles in the second part highlight the moments in the experiences

of the teachers/facilitators of the COI that show that authentic investigation

had occurred. Because the development of the subject occurs in the realm of

the concrete, a description of the unique logic of the concrete is of great

importance to teachers preparing for the role of a facilitator in a community

of inquiry.

As the COI becomes the answer to a growing number of questions that

teachers ask themselves, the analysis of the internal workings of the COI is

gaining ground.Without an analysis of the structure and dynamic of the COI,

future practitioners will have an idealized image of it,making them ill-prepared

for the reality of leading a dialogue in a COI.The key issues here seem to be

how the different aspects of the community come together to form a single

community and how to combine the different roles of the (vanishing) teacher.

The more tasks the community takes on, the greater is the likelihood of ten-

sion and conflict in the community and the greater is the possibility that theparticipants may not be involved in the investigation to the extent required for

it to be authentic investigation. Reading articles about the benefits of the

COI, the teacher might get the impression that the COI is the solution to all

problems and that it comes into existence almost on its own. It is therefore

only right to draw her attention to the other side of the coin: the COI can

have a number of extraordinary effects, but in using the COI the myriad of

problems in class will be replaced by a single one how to establish and main-

tain the authenticity of the COI.

note s

1. Gregory (2007) thus presents a framework he himself uses for facilitating

philosophical dialogues with children, but he considers this six-level model of

inquiry to be of very general application and suitable for structuring group

discussions across the disciplines as well as in non-pedagogical contexts such

as peer mediation, and across a range of ages and levels of expertise (Gregory,

2007: 60).

2. David Kennedy and Pavel Lushyn also follow a similar line when analysing the

community of inquiry in terms of the position of the subject.They consider


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the community as advancing from an individual subject to an intersubject

(a subject who has entered the realm of intersubjectivity) and a collective

subject the unitary identity of the group as a whole (Lushyn and Kennedy,

2000: 14).

3. Lushyn (2002) tries to consider this complex role of the teacher in terms of a

distinction between an ordinary participant and a meta-participant, the

teacher as the facilitator in the COI being not merely a meta-participant but

both an ordinary and a meta-participant.

4. A number of authors have entertained the idea that the community of inquiry

is not homogeneous or that there is in fact more than one single community.

Splitter and Sharp were definitely right in their extensive study on the class-

room community of inquiry when they refused to give a precise definition of

the community and referred to the COI as an open concept that will change

and advance in the course of development:We shall not try to give a precise

definition of community of inquiry. It is one of those key concepts which

takes on new aspects and dimensions (Splitter and Sharp, 1995: 17). Several

other authors point out the complex structure and the elaborate internal

dynamic of the community. Kennedy (1997) thus specifies five communities:

the community of gesture, the community of language, the community of

mind, the community of love, and the community of interest.What he has in

mind are five dimensions of the same community, which raises the question of

how these dimensions overlap and influence one another, and how, if at all,

they come together to form a single community. Lushyn (2002) focuses on the

analysis of the processual nature of the community and views it as a dynamic

whole in which nothing is permanent except for change, opposition and

contradiction.

5. In Teaching for Better Thinking Splitter and Sharp introduce the equality

condition and when it comes topersonal characteristics of the participants, they

point out that those must in a sense stand outside the dialogue itself . In add-

ition,the point of this condition is not to dehumanise dialogue or to invalidate

personal perspectives, but to avoid unwarranted discrimination (Splitter and

Sharp, 1995; 367).

6. These evaluations are so essential to the subject that Taylor says:For it is pre-

cisely the deepest evaluations which are least clear, least articulated, most easily

subject to illusion and distortion. It is those which are closest to what I am as

a subject, in the sense that shorn of them I would break down as a person,which are among the hardest for me to be clear about (Taylor, 1976: 296). In

a sense, the depth of the subject is what the subject really is in his authenticity.

And this depth is what Socrates is referring to in his tenet that the unexamined

life is not worth living.

7. It can be said of the established COI that the individual does not have ideas;

at least when it comes to fundamental ideas, it is rather the ideas that have the

individual.At this stage, the community of inquiry comes close to a hermeneutic

community in which the foundations of the community that the subject is

integrated into are such that they cannot be exhaustively articulated.


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8. In their contribution to the Symposium on Philosophy for Children, Maughn

Gregory and Megan Laverty present a formal instrument for the evaluation of

classroom dialoguewhich can be used for any dialogue in the classroom, not

only for dialogue in the field of philosophy for children.

r e f e r e nc e s

Cane, M. (2003) Group roles in community of inquiry, Thinking16(3): 1216.

Curren, R. (2007) Editorial, Theory and Research in Education 5(3): 25960.

Elster, J. (1985) Sour Grapes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gardner, S. (1995) Inquiry is no mere conversation, Critical and Creative Thinking

3(2): 3849.

Gregory, M. (2007) A Framework for Facilitating Classroom Dialogue, Teaching

Philosophy 30(1): 5984.

Kennedy, D. (1997) The five communities, Inquiry 16(4): 6686.

Kennedy, D. (2004) Communal philosophical dialogue and the intersubject,

International Journal of Applied Philosophy 18(2): 20318.

Laverty, M. (2003) The role of confession in community of inquiry: Self-revelation

as self-justification, Thinking16(3): 3035.

Laverty, M. and Gregory, M. (2007) Evaluating classroom dialogue: Reconciling

internal and external accountability, Theory and Research in Education 5(3):

281308.

Lushyn, P. (2002) The paradoxical nature of ecofacilitation in the community of

inquiry, Thinking16(1): 817.

Lushyn,P. and Kennedy, D. (2000) The psychodynamics of community of inquiry

and educational reform:A cross-cultural perspective, Thinking15(3): 916.

Phillips, R. (1997) Motivation and the goal of inquiry, in H. Palsson,B. Sigurdardottir and B. Nelson (eds) Philosophy for Children on the Top of the

World, pp. 205. Iceland: University of Akureyri.

Salecl, R. (1991) Disciplina kot pogoj svobode. Ljubljana: Krt.

Splitter, L. (2007) Do the groups to which I belong make me me? Reflections on

community and identity, Theory and Research in Education 5(3): 26180.

Splitter, L. and Sharp, A. (1995) Teaching for Better Thinking: The Classroom

Community of Inquiry. Melbourne:ACER Press.

Taylor, C. (1976) Responsibility for self, in A.O. Rorty (ed.) The Identities of

Persons, pp. 281300. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Taylor, C. (1991) The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press.

b iog raph ica l note

mar jan s im enc is a researcher at the Educational Research Institute in

Ljubljana and an assistant professor of didactics of philosophy at the Faculty of Arts

in Ljubljana. He publishes in the areas of teaching philosophy, citizenship education

and philosophy of education. [email: [email protected]]


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