Theories of learning have long emphasized the essential role of social factors in the development of early reasoning abilities. More recently, it has been proposed that the presentation of conflicting perspectives may facilitate young children's understanding of knowledge claims as potentially subjective--one of many possible representations of…

This paper explores the important relationship between dialogue and cognitive and metacognitive development in young children. The characteristics of dialogue are identified and a case is presented for involving young children in talking to think through philosophical discussion. The paper provides a theoretical context for kinds of metacognitive…