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Developing Communities of Inquiry in the USA: 
Retrospect and Prospective

Richard Morehouse

 
This paper takes a board perspective on Community of Inquiry (CI), following the orientation of earlier pa-

pers looking at progressive pedagogies (Morehouse, 1993a; 1993b). In those papers, I argued that Philosophy for 
Children should look for kindred spirits in order to both better understand its own position within pedagogic 
tradition and to “make friends” in order to positively influences the lives and learning of children. The whole 
language approaches to reading instruction was the major focus of those papers. Here I take a bolder perspec-
tive arguing that in order to understand and appreciate what a community of inquiry is, how it operates, and its 
influence in the schools, one ought to look at applications of CI that are not within the Philosophy for Children 
literature. Some of these programs specifically discuss CI, others do not. In taking such an approach towards the 
literature of pedagogy, I have discovered and included programs that do use the words ‘community of inquiry’ as 
a part of the pedagogic lexicon. This position appears to be supported by Matthew Lipman himself (1988). 

If we begin with the practice in the classroom, the practice of converting it into a reflective community 
that thinks in the disciplines about the world and about its thinking about the world, we soon come to 
recognize that communities can be nested within larger communities and these within larger communi-
ties still, if all hold the same allegiance to the same procedures of inquiry (1988, p 20). 

My point is that seeing the Community of Inquiry as related primarily to Philosophy for Children is to di-
minish our understanding of it, even within the practitioners of Philosophy for Children. This broader position 
does not seem to be at odds with Lipman’s placement of CI within a larger, nested framework. A look at the 
origins of CI will, I think, add support to such a broader view.

Though not mentioned in Lipman’s parathion of contributors to the Community of Inquiry as an educa-
tional framework, other writers including Lipman (cf. Splitter & Sharp, 1995) refer back to Charles Sanders 
Pierce and his articulation of the idea of CI as a method of science (1878). Following Pierce, John Dewey extends 
the idea of a community of inquiry specifically to teaching and learning in “My pedagogic Creed” (1897) and his 
book on Democracy and Education (1916). Lipman, in Philosophy goes to school (1988), makes further connections 
regarding his intellectual path to writing philosophical novels for children and to the community of inquiry.

One has only to reread Montaigne, Locke, Richard and Maria Edgeworth, Coleridge, and I.A. Richards, 
or Dewey and Bruner to discern that a crude but powerful notion was here struggling to be born. John 
Dewey’s contribution, it must be acknowledged, dwarfs those of all others, much as does his standing in 
the philosophy of education (1988, p.4).

In this statement you can read the connections between Philosophy for Children and Community of In-
quiry: cultural heritage, languages to be learned, conversation with mankind, and dialogue. Lipman’s wide and 
deep reading uncovers the interconnections between teaching, learning, dialogue, thinking, and narrative. These 
elements inform his view of CI.



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However, in addition to being influenced by a deep understanding of the philosophical tradition, Matthew 
Lipman was also influenced by the educational reform movement as well as the social/cultural/political turmoil 
of the 1960s. It is within the context of his sensitive awareness of educational change, the social turmoil happen-
ing within the university and beyond, as well as his study of the contributions of philosophers to knowledge and 
knowing, that Lipman develops the idea of a community of inquiry as a major pedagogical undertaking (Lip-
man, Sharp, & Oscanyan, 1980). His turn to CI and its development in the United States is the starting point 
for this paper.  This examination of Lipman’s development of CI looks at work within Philosophy for Children 
and to like-minded innovators and educational programs that preceded him as well as those that follow him.

Community of Inquiry as Articulated within Philosophy for Children

Starting in the Middle with Matthew Lipman

As hinted at earlier, Lipman’s early work happened at a critical time in American educational reform - the 
post-sputnik period of the early 1960’s. These changes not only occurred within the context of the cold war, but 
also at a time of social/cultural/political unrest. It was during this time that several major curriculum projects 
were undertaken in mathematics and science and later in the social sciences (see Fenton, 1967 for a short sum-
mary and its relationship to innovations in teaching social studies). Among the more innovative of the curricu-
lum reform projects, and one that may have influenced Lipman’s work, was Jerome Bruner’s ‘Man: A Course 
of Study.’ Two other educational reformers whose work was a part of the zeitgeist of change were Sidney Simon 
on Value Clarification and Lawrence Kohlberg on Moral Reasoning (1973; 1984;DeVries & Kohlberg, 1987; Power, 
Higgins & Kohlberg, 1989) whose work may have had an indirect influence on Lipman’s thinking (see More-
house, 1982 for a comparison of these programs).

Given this complex history, it seems appropriate to start in the middle with Lipman’s Philosophy in the Class-
room (Lipman et al, 1980). I will first look at how Lipman’s ideas are extended within the Philosophy for Chil-
dren family and then look back to the origins of Lipman’s ideas on CI. A wider view of the educational innova-
tions that have extended some of the important elements of CI will then be presented.

 
Matthew Lipman’s great insight was to marry community of inquiry as pedagogy with philosophy as doing 

within a curriculum for elementary and secondary students. This marriage is the essence of the Philosophy for 
Children program. With the publication of Philosophy in the Classroom (Lipman, Sharp & Oscanyan, 1980), Lip-
man launched an educational movement that continued and extended the work of John Dewey and the educa-
tional reform movement of the 1960s. 

Lipman’s Ideas about education are embedded within the history of philosophy. He writes about some of his 
intellectual debt to past philosophers and educators. It is clear that John Dewey made some substantial contribu-
tion to his thinking on CI.

From Dewey, it is only a short step to Jerome Bruner’s contention that the cultural heritage of mankind 
can be taught with undiminished integrity at every grade level, to Michael Oakeshott’s insistence that all 
disciplines, the sciences as well as the humanities, are languages to be learned, languages whose interani-
mation constitutes “the conversation of mankind,” to Wittgenstein and Ryle on thinking and to Buber 
on dialogue. Another short step and we see the text replaced by the philosophical novel and the instruc-
tional manual (how it would have delighted Wittgenstein!) composed almost completely of philosophical 
questions (1988, pp. 4-5).
 
Lipman builds on Dewey’s foundation, but how does Lipman combine the pedagogy of CI with doing philos-

ophy? First, Lipman and his colleagues (Lipman et al, 1980) thought anew about how to teach philosophy - not as 
a history of ideas or an uncovering of the ideas of others, but as a thinking activity; philosophy for children is do-
ing philosophy. Perhaps this idea of doing philosophy is in part what Oakeshott had in mind when he wrote:



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As civilized human beings, we are the inheritors, neither of an inquiry about ourselves and the world, 
not of an accumulating body of information, but of a conversation, begun in the primeval forest and 
extended and made articulate in the course of centuries (Oakeshott, 1959).  

Doing philosophy as conversation, dialogue, and discussion is at the core of CI as practiced within Philoso-
phy for Children.

Secondly, he introduced narrative as a method for raising questions, exploring issues, and as a model for 
intellectual behavior, that is, the stories read by the students are a model for a community of inquiry. Students 
read about and participate in a community of inquiry. Lipman’s use of narrative as driving force of a curricu-
lum was a unique contribution to pedagogy, though narrative was not unknown within the educational system. 
For example, the Junior Great Books program used classic works of children’s and adult literature, science and 
philosophy as a part of an educational program; however, the narrative did not provide an explicit pedagogy, as 
did Lipman’s philosophical novels. Instead, the Junior Great Books project uses three types of questions (fact 
question, meaning questions, and interpretive questions) to explore a set of stories and essays. Narrative was not 
central to this project nor was there any modeling of a community of inquiry as was found in Lipman’s work.

 
The third key point to Lipman’s development of community of inquiry as a pedagogy is the understanding 

that thinking aloud is a means for self-correction; it is a means for improvement of thinking skills. Most impor-
tantly thinking is presented as an ability that can be improved when children think together aloud. Building on 
the work of George Herbert Mead and Lev Vygotsky on thinking as internalized dialogue, Lipman see thinking 
aloud as a way to improve thinking by making the internal external (Lipman et al, 1980, p. 23). The community 
of inquiry allows for both the internalization of dialogue and the externalization of thinking. Lipman takes full 
advantage of children thinking aloud in a classroom setting to exploit the power of discussion that moves toward 
a solution. 

 
Elaborating on a point raised earlier, Lipman saw CI as connected to a larger vision of education. In writing 

about the connections to the thinking of others regarding Community of Inquiry, he references John Dewey 
(wrestling with problems), Jerome Burner (the teachability of our cultural heritage), Michael Oakeshott (the con-
versation of mankind), Martin Buber (dialogue), Gilbert Ryle, and Ludwig Wittgenstein (thinking) as influences 
on his thinking (1988, pp. 4-5). Of these figures, only Dewey and Bruner are discussed in this essay as they are 
the most well connected with educational innovation in the United States.

 
Lipman develops the value of struggling with problems, thinking skills as learnable, dialogue as self-correct-

ing community within a series of books and philosophical novels (Lipman & Sharp, 1975;Lipman, Sharp, & 
Oscanyan, 1980; Lipman, 1988; Lipman, Lipman, 1991; Lipman, 1993: Lipman, 1996) as well as in the instruc-
tion of philosophers as trainers in Philosophy for Children at Mendham (An educational retreat center) and in 
workshops conducted by himself and colleagues at Montclair State University .

Early Adopters and Innovators - Sharp & Splitter and Reed
 
While Ann Sharp wrote Philosophy in the Classroom (1980) with Matthew Lipman and Fredrick Oscanyan, she 

greatly expands her contribution to CI with her work with Lawrence Splitter (1995).  Teaching for better thinking: 
The classroom Community of Inquiry (Splitter & Sharp, 1995) provides an extended argument and set of examples 
for CI as an important educational tool; a tool that has the advantage of engendering thinking skills and a rea-
soning disposition. Splitter and Sharp make clear in the introduction that they are writing about CI within the 
context of Philosophy for Children even while they draw ideas and inspirations from well beyond the horizons 
of Philosophy for Children. Instead of trying to define a CI, which they argue is a concept that emerges within 
practice and that takes on new dimensions as students and teacher work to become a community of inquiry, 
they ask a more interesting question: If we were to visit a classroom where CI is in use, what would we see? (p.18). 



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They see:

in a classroom wherein a community of inquiry was occurring, children at a round table or with desk 
formed in a circle, participants building on, shaping and modifying one another’s ideas, bound by their in-
terests in the subject matter to keep a unified focus and following the inquiry wherever it might lead (p.18).  

They also argue that we would also see an open-ended inquiry shaped by student and teacher questions, 
hypotheses, pondering and explanations. We would see, according to Splitter and Sharp, efforts to “get to the 
bottom of things” while realizing that may be a long way off. If conclusions are reached the students in a com-
munity of inquiry would regard those conclusions tentative and incomplete ideas, arrived at by a thoughtful and 
reasonable process (pp. 18 - 19). As the above comments imply, CI is often thought of as being both a process 
and a goal, that is, we work toward creating a CI by participating in a CI (Morehouse, 2003).

Splitter and Sharp’s major contributions to CI revolve around the ways that classroom teachers might apply 
these concepts in their own classes as well as providing an overall justification for community of inquiry and 
philosophy for children as an important, perhaps in their eyes, even essential tool for educational reform. 

Ronald Reed in his work as the founder and first editor of Analytic Teaching, as well as with his published 
books (Reed, 1983) and several anthologies (Reed, 1993; Sharp & Reed, 1992; Reed & Sharp, 1996; Portelli &  
Reed, 1995), extends our understanding of Community of Inquiry. One element of Reed’s work was to look at 
CI in terms of conversation (cf. Reed, 1993). Reed’s point is that what happens in the classroom is more than a 
discussion; it is, in fact, a conversation that, while not having any predictable direction, is not without purpose. 
Consistent with Oakeshott, the purpose of a conversation is mutual engagement that may lead to a solution of 
a problem but whose value is as much in the doing as it is in CI. Reed (1993) took the idea of conversation seri-
ously. In Talking with Children he wrote: 

The very physical act of one person talking with another person can create a bond, can strengthen an 
already existing bond, or destroy it. We utter the platitude that talk is cheap and then realize that talk 
often significantly affects what people know, do, and feel. It becomes difficult, at this point, to think of 
anything more valuable than talk (1983, p. 2).

Ron Reed was also instrumental in founding the North American Association for Community of Inquiry 
(NAACI), an organization that I was fortunate enough to lead from 1994 to 2008.  There are many other con-
tributors to the development of theory and practice of CI. I will just mention three here: Marie-France Daniel on 
philosophy with children in relation to science and mathematics (Daniel, Lafortune, Pallascio & Sykes, 1996), 
David Kennedy on childhood (2006) and Susan Gardner on practical reasoning (2009). 

A Historical Look at Community of Inquiry

Charles Sanders Pierce - The Godfather of Community of Inquiry

Pierce’s ideas about community of inquiry can’t be characterized in a sentence or two or in a nice neat phrase. 
Rather they are embedded in his ideas regarding semiotics and the nature of logic. Pierce sees a community of 
inquiry as closely related to a community of scientists. In their various forms, communities seek to find certainty 
through the three-pronged approach of abduction, deduction and induction. Abduction is another name for 
generating a hypothesis. Hypothesis generation (abduction) is closely connected to induction and deduction, as 
a hypothesis must be a guess that is amenable to verification or disproven by induction or deduction. Much of 
science, in Pierce’s view, was conducted and, perhaps more importantly, corrected within a community of sci-
ence scholars. The science community as a group of open-ended inquirers testing their ideas in a public forum 



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(thus allowing for joint struggle for truth) was his model of a community of inquiry.

John Dewey - Real Problems and Community of Inquiry

John Dewey’s thinking about education arises out of the context of America’s transition from an agrarian so-
ciety to an urban industrial one and from a “settled” population to a population characterized by internal migra-
tion and external immigration. His ideas on pedagogy and curriculum grew out of the social and cultural issues 
of the day. He saw these issues as having a potential solution through the democratization of political and social 
institutions of the culture. Schools were among the institutions that needed, he thought, more democracy. His 
thinking on schools and education spawned much innovation not only during his most productive years (1890 - 
1940) but also much later (after his death) during the educational reform movement during the 1960s and early 
1970s. These reforms were simulated by sputnik and the cold war competition for prominence in science much 
as Dewey’s reforms were precipitated by the changes in the early part of the 19th century. 

 
Dewey asks and answers a question in Democracy and Education (1916) that is relevant to Lipman’s work on 

CI as well as the school reform movement that provides a context for this paper. Dewey’s simple question is “why 
are children so full of questions outside of school and so conspicuously absence of display of curiously about the 
subject matter of school lessons?” (p. 153). His answer is equally relevant to this discussion. Dewey’s answers is, 
in part,

There must be more actual material, more stuff, more appliances, and more opportunity for doing things, 
before the gap can be overcome. And where children engage in doing things, and in discussion what 
arises in the course of their doing, is found, even with comparatively indifferent modes of instruction, 
that children’s inquiries are spontaneous and numerous, and proposals of solutions advanced, varied, 
and ingenious [italics in the original] (1916, p. 156).
 
Dewey goes on in the section of Democracy and Education (1916) entitled “Thinking in education” to write 

about how ideas cannot be simply transferred from one head to another head. He writes that when a child is told 
something, it is the teller that has the idea not the listener. For the idea to become the listener’s idea, he or she 
must engage with the idea, must struggle with the problem, and must see it through to application if it is going 
to be her idea, if it is going to be understood.

The communication may stimulate the other person to realize the question for himself and to think out 
a like idea, or it may smother his [or her] intellectual interest and suppress his [or her] dawning effort at 
thought. But what he directly gets cannot be an idea. Only by wrestling with the conditions of the prob-
lem at first hand, seeking and finding his own way out, does he think. A parent or teacher can provide 
the conditions to stimulate thinking. Teachers or parents can inter into a common experience with the 
child if they have a sympathetic attitude toward the activities of learning, but that is all that second par-
ties can do, it up to the pupil to do the reflective thinking that makes learning possible (Dewey, 1916, p. 
159-160).
 
The twin ideas of having stuff to think about and a method for making ideas one’s own are manifested in Lip-

man’s “invention” of the philosophical novel and its unpacking in the community of inquiry. Dewey’s summary 
of ‘Thinking in education’ also provides the context for my connecting Matthew Lipman, and those who have 
come before him (especially Jerome Bruner) with those who have followed after, all of whose work continues 
in the same rich vein of intellectual discourse initiated in Democracy and Education. Here is Dewey’s summary 
paragraph from the chapter called ‘Thinking and education.’

Processes of instruction are unified in the degree in which they center in the production of good habits 
of thinking. While we may speak, without error, of the method of thought, the important thing is that 
thinking is the method of an educative experience. The essentials of method are therefore identical 



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with the essentials of reflection. They are first that the pupil have genuine situations of experience - that 
there be continuous activity in which he is interested for its own sake; secondly, that a genuine problem 
develop within this situation as a stimulus for thought; third, that he possess the information and make 
observations needed to deal with it; fourth, that suggested solutions occur to him which he shall be re-
sponsible for developing in an orderly way; fifth that he have opportunity and occasion to test his idea by 
application, to make their meaning clear and discover for himself their validity (p. 163).

Having a genuine sense of the situation, developing problems, gathering information, and testing of possible 
solutions, are all a part of CI in the various manifestation discussed here.

Jerome Bruner - A Possible Transition from Dewey to Lipman

Jerome Bruner, one of the preeminent psychologists and educators of our time, has contributed to the 
conceptualization and initial implementation of Head Start, the development of a curriculum called ‘Man: A 
course of Study’ and about a half dozen books on education and learning (Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin, 1956; 
Bruner, 1960; Bruner, 1966; Bruner, Oliver, & Greenfield, 1966; Bruner, 1971; Bruner, 1983; Bruner, 1996). 
Toward a Theory of Instruction (Bruner, 1966), wherein he documents the development of his curriculum project 
Man: A course of Instruction (1970), provides scholars interested in new ways of teaching and curriculum develop-
ment with a set of conceptual tools, new ideas, and research that could be put to use in their work. As a starter, 
Bruner offer six benchmarks for intellectual growth. Several have direct connection, I argue, to elements of 
Lipman’s contributions to CI. Bruner’s number three is “Intellectual growth involves an increasing capacity to 
say to oneself and others, by means of words or symbols, what one has done or what one will do” (1966, p. 5). 
His fifth benchmark is “Teaching is vastly facilitated by the medium of language, which ends by being not only 
the medium of exchange but the instrument that the learner can then use himself in bringing order into the 
environment” (1966, p. 6). 

Two other overarching ideas from Bruner are presented before turning to ‘Man: A course of study’ as poten-
tial models of Philosophy for Children and CI. First is Bruner’s conception of the spiral manner in which learn-
ing unfolds. Three representations of the world are proposed to explain this unfolding: representation through 
action (called Enactive), sensory representation (called Iconic), and linguistic representation (called Symbolic). 
These three ways of representing the world are a counterbalance to Piaget’s stages of development that focus on 
epistemology. Bruner’s representational sequences are oriented toward understanding the psychology of the way 
one processes or represents the world. Bruner’s model is sequential only in the sense that each way of represent-
ing the world is mastered in order, but after mastery the order that is most effective to the material at hand, and 
the ways of representing it, can be used effectively in any order. My point is that Lipman implicitly works on the 
iconic and symbolic level of representation, while conscious of Piagetian levels of epistemological stages of com-
prehension. However, Lipman does not necessarily see students as limited in their understanding of the world in 
the same way as Piaget’s epistemological levels predict. Lipman hinted at his orientation toward Bruner’s concep-
tion of learning in a citation presented earier in this paper. Lipman, paraphrasing Bruner, states that any idea 
can be taught to anyone at any age if it is taught in an intellectually honest manner. Specifically, Lipman states 
that the cultural heritage of mankind can be taught with undiminished integrity at every grade level.  

 
Bruner in the early 1950s (see Bruner, 1983 for his own perspective on this move) makes a serious move away 

from behaviorism toward what he calls cognition, what others have called the first cognitive revolution (Gardner, 
1985). This move from behaviorism to cognitivism may be characterized as a move away from subjects toward 
agents- a move from behavior toward action, and a move away from information toward meaning (Bruner, 1990). 
It seems clear to me that Lipman’s approach to philosophy and inquiry are in the same direction as Bruner’s 
moves toward agents, action, and meaning. 

 
The following quote from Bruner, I argue, makes a clear intellectual connection between Bruner, Dewey and 

Lipman. 



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We say, “I see what I am doing now,” or “So that’s what the thing is.” The new models are formed in 
increasingly powerful representational systems. It is this that leads me to think that the heart of the 
educational process consists of providing aids and dialogues for translating experience into a powerful 
system of notation and ordering. And it is for this reason that I think a theory of development must be 
linked both to a theory of knowledge and a theory of instruction or be doomed to triviality (1966, p. 21, 
the emphasis is mine).

Extensions of CI: Some New Application of Basic Ideas

Four educational theorist and practitioners are presented in this section, David Perkins, Deanna Kuhn, Ann 
Brown, and Robert Selman. All four differ somewhat in their understanding and use of CI, however, all share 
the underlining premise of CI as presented here; specifically, they all accept the classroom as a community of 
scholars committed to seeking answers while engaged in self-correcting dialogue.

David N. Perkins - The Thinking Classroom
 
David   Perkins, a co-director of Project Zero with Howard Gardner, is a kindred spirit of those working 

on enhancing Community of Inquiry. Like some of the others mentioned in this section, Perkins (Nickerson, 
Perkins, & Smith, 1985) includes Philosophy for Children and Community of Inquiry within his discussion of 
programs that further critical and creative thinking. Perkins has done original work on creativity (1981), critical 
thinking (1995), and the transfer of skills and knowledge (1992) both within and across domains. These stud-
ies have found direct application on his work in schools. It is specifically his work in schools that ties him to 
the like-minded innovators discussed here. I will focus on just one of his recent books, The Thinking Classroom: 
Learning and teaching in a culture of thinking (Tishman, Perkins, & Jay, 1995), as it clearly presents his orientation 
toward Community of Inquiry, though at least four of his other books also report favorably on Lipman’s work 
(Nickerson, Perkins, & Smith, 1985; Perkins, 1981; 1992; 1995). His ideas about schools and Community of 
Inquiry are represented as follows: 

Schools are places of culture. Not only in the sense that they introduce students to great intellectual 
achievements, but also in the sense of community, their spirit of common enterprise. … In particular, it 
is about how to transform the culture of the classroom into a culture of thinking (Tishman, Perkins, & 
Jay, 1995, p.1). 

The goal of these authors is to create a culture of thinking. That culture of thinking is very similar to a com-
munity of inquiry. One becomes acculturated by the exposure to models and explanations, by interacting with 
others within that culture and by getting feedback on one’s behavior or activities, much as one learns to discuss 
ideas in a community of inquiry by participating in a community of inquiry. Self-correcting reflection is also a 
key element in the thinking culture of a school (Tishman, Perkins, & Jay, 1995).

Deanna Kuhn - The Skill of Inquiry 

Deanna Kuhn and Matthew Lipman share a commitment to inquiry and argument. Kuhn writes about 
Philosophy for Children and its relationship to the development of personal epistemology (1999). Her work 
on inquiry and argument skills (2005) and Lipman’s Community of Inquiry is based on dialogic argument 
and open-ended discussion. Kuhn’s Education for thinking (2005) is built on the dual processes of inquiry (dis-
tinguishing theory from evidence) and argument (coordinating claims and evidence). In The skill of argument 
(1991), Kuhn states that dialogic and rhetorical arguments are based on very similar structures. “Evidence must 
be related to each assertion, and, ideally, if the argument is to move forward, this evidence needs to be weighed 
in an integrated evaluation of the relative merits of the opposing assertions” (Kuhn, 1991, p.12). In a later work 



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(2005) she agrees with Lipman that thinking is a social act (Kuhn, 2005, p.  13; Lipman et al. 1980, p. ). 

Thinking is something people do, most often collaboratively, while they are engaged in pursuing the ac-
tivities and goals of their daily lives. Thinking rarely remains a solitary activity conducted inside people’s 
heads. Thinking is most often and most importantly social activity embodied in the discourse people 
engage in to advance their individual and shared goals (Kuhn, 2005, p. 13 - 14).

She further stares that in order to think well with others, that is, to engage in a dialogical argument, one 

needs to coordinate three perspectives: one’s own perspective, the perspective of another person, and external 
information.  The coordination of these three perspectives is facilitated within a community of learners engaged 
in thinking together under the guidance of an able teacher committed to inquiry and argument (Kuhn, 2005). 

Ann Brown – Communities of Thinking and Learning 

Ann Brown was an important contributor to understanding the relationship between teaching and learning 
from a Vygotskian perspective. A major project, embarked on just before her untimely death, was called ‘Foster-
ing Communities of Learners.’ This project was a part of her work at Harvard University. Brown’s work begins 
by developing an approach to teaching the skill of reading called reciprocal teaching that involves first modeling, 
then involving students in acting aloud to each other in small groups a series of metacognitive questions, such as 
what might happen next? (Prediction), what’s happened so far? (Summary) and what is the relationship between 
two characters in a story? (Clarifying). The students eventually internalize these questions. Reflective teaching 
uses Vygotskian scaffolding in small groups as a teaching tool in what Brown calls a culture of learning. Brown 
summarizes the community of learners as follows:

The three key activities  -- (a) research, (b) in order to share information, (c) in order to perform a conse-
quential task -- are overseen and coordinated by all members of the community,  … The community relies 
on the fact that participants are trying to understand deep disciplinary content. They are learning about 
something meaningful (1997, p. 404). 

Brown’s work clearly owes a debt to Bruner, Lipman and Dewey and is within the confines of CI developed 
in this paper.

Robert Selman: Voices of Love and Freedom

The work of Robert Selman may seem like a stretch to be included as a Community of Inquiry program. It 
is included to the extent it uses the classroom community as a way to develop literacy and social awareness. I 
argue that social awareness is one of the underdeveloped ideas in Community of Inquiry. Most of the theorists 

Other’s
Perspective

External
Information

Self’s
Perspective

Coordination of three perspective required in argument evaluation (Kuhn, 2005,p.137)



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and practitioners discussed here assume that social awareness will develop as a community of inquiry unfolds. 
To a certain extent, I agree with that assumption. However, Selman’s work helps us understand and respond in 
situations were social awareness does not occur naturally and may in fact undermine our effort to create a com-
munity of inquiry.

Robert Selman’s work in education began with Lawrence Kohlberg’s work on moral reasoning. Selman en-
rolled in a course Kohlberg was teaching at Harvard while on leave form the University of Chicago. This soon led 
to his implementation of moral dilemmas in the classroom and eventually to his research on perspective taking 
and social behavior. Selman argues that a lack of ability to take the perspective of another person was related 
to the level at which students responded to moral issues. His work with individual students eventually lead to a 
classroom project called Voices of Love and Freedom (VLF). 

VLF is a pedagogy directed to promoting social perspective coordination skills by having “disparate groups 
talk to each other, in their own voices, about their experiences – to share their perspectives on life in the commu-
nity” (Selman, 2003, p.65) with a use of a multiracial story as a conversation starter. By helping students develop 
a stronger sense of autonomy and connectedness, this program brings CI to the challenging world of school 
environments. This is consistent with Lipman’s field-testing of Philosophy for Children in an inner-city school. 

Summary

One way to think about a community of inquiry is to conceptualize it as a way of addressing the following 
questions: How should we teach students the skills of inquiry? And what does it mean for students to inquire? 
The advantage of looking at CI from the perspective of these questions is that it ties together what otherwise 
appear to be a series of unconnected efforts at educational reform and also places CI outside the bubble of Phi-
losophy for Children. However, one additional set of questions, first asked by John Dewey in 1916, is required to 
complete those connections, namely, how is it that a child is so interested in the world and asks so many ques-
tions, but stops asking questions once she is in the classroom? Dewey’s answer is that there is not enough stuff for 
the child to think about and that when we think about stuff it needs to be within the context of figuring things 
out for oneself. This paper has tried to view Community of Inquiry within a historical context of philosophers, 
educators and psychologists who have attempted to address these three questions within the context of joint 
problem solving and thinking aloud.

Jerome Bruner, in evaluating Ann Brown’s Fostering Communities of Learners (FCL) provides a way of 
thinking about the elements of CI. He argues that four critical elements underlie FCL, and I would argue that 
these elements also underlie CI.

The first of these is the idea of agency: taking more control of your own mental activities. The second is 
reflection: not simply “learning in the raw” but making what you learn make sense, understanding it. The 
third is collaboration: sharing the results of the mix of human beings involved in teaching and learning. 
Mind is in the head, but also it is with others. And the fourth is culture, the way of life and thought that 
we construct, negotiate, institutionalize, and finally (after it’s all settled) end up calling ‘reality’ to comfort 
ourselves (1996, p. 87).

I have argued that an educational program that advances agency, reflection, collaboration, and culture has 
the necessary elements for a community of inquiry to occur.  Although Community of Inquiry will develop 
largely within the context of Philosophy for Children, it is not and should not be the exclusive property of Phi-
losophy for Children – CI is too important an educational tool not to be widely use and further developed.



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Address coresspondence to:

Richard E. Morehouse, PhD
Professor Emeritus
Viterbo University 
remorehouse@viterbo.edu

or

Praxis
Consulting*training*educating*evaluating
115 5th Avenue South
Suite 409
La Crosse, WI 54601
Phone: 608.782.4041


