Education, citizenship and critical thinking

The central thesis of this article is that teaching the skills of critical thinking and argument is an essential aspect of education for citizenship. The author focuses on one prominent approach to critical thinking, involving the development of philosophical and moral reasoning in young children, and rejects a number of arguments which may be advanced against the introduction of such work in primary schools. In order to illustrate his argument that young children are capable of thinking and arguing critically about a range of issues, he examines a discussion which took place with a class of Year Two children.