ABSTRACT
The positive effects of dialogic education have been evident for a long time. As early as the 1930s Vygotsky argued that the basis of effective learning lies in the type of social interaction that takes place between two or more people with different levels of skills and knowledge. This view is supported by the findings on Matthew Lipman’s early 1970s ‘Philosophy for Children Project’, which revealed that children who learned to discuss issues effectively in class did better than other children of the same age in terms of reading, reasoning, and thinking in general (Lipman, Sharp, & Oscanyan, 2010; Trickey & Topping, 2004). In turn, Shayer and Adey’s Cognitive Acceleration in Science Education (CASE) project, which focused on group work and discussions in science classes, showed that the participating children achieved better than expected not only in science but also in mathematics and English language (Shayer & Adey, 2002).
