Effectiveness of Philosophy for Children on their Loneliness

Loneliness is a distressing experience and has destroying psychological consequences for children. This paper explored the effectiveness of instructing philosophy for children on children’s loneliness after controlling the role of the social-emotional learning. This study adopted a quasi-experimental method. The statistical population included sixth grade primary school male students of Urmia (N=۵۰) chosen by cluster random sampling method and then randomly assigned to the experimental (N=۲۵) and Control (N=۲۵) groups. The experimental group participated in ۱۲ sessions of philosophy for children instruction while the control group did not receive any special instruction. Children loneliness questionnaire by Asher and Wheeler (۱۹۸۵) and the Social-Emotional Learning scale of Coryn et al. (۲۰۰۹) were administrated. The results of this study showed the same patterns as Westerns studies. After controlling the role of covariates variables (the pre-test and social-emotional learning) on loneliness by ANCOVA test, instructing philosophy for children has a significant effect on loneliness. Moreover, after instructing philosophy for children, the experimental group showed lower levels of loneliness than the control group (P<۰.۰۰۱). Although there were two covariate variables, pre-test, and social-emotional learning, instructing philosophy for children had an effect on loneliness, accordingly these findings highlight the importance of philosophy for children in mitigating children’s loneliness. This findings may be helpful for school psychologists in schools.

Keywords:

Loneliness , philosophy for children , Social-Emotional Learning