Philosophical dialogues on Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales: A case study of P4C manuals

In Denmark, teaching the famous fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen poses a challenge in primary education because cultural heritage status and oversimplified readings make it difficult to engage students in authentic readings. One strategy might be to use philosophical dialogues from the traditions of philosophy for children, because they offer student-centred approaches to teaching where students explore questions and ideas together, and where the teacher assumes the role not as authority, but as facilitator of the dialogue. This kind of dialogic teaching has been encouraged as especially suitable for literary education where teachers aim to engage students in reading the literature with an open mind. However, this article presents a comparative case study of P4C pioneer Per Jespersen’s materials for philosophical dialogues and Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, and our study gives reason for caution. We analysed the question design in the fairy tale manuals and compared them to the manuals for Jespersen’s own stories, and found that the questioning design in the manuals for his own stories are generally much more focused and accessible, building on conceptually open questions. We argue that this indicates that despite its dialogic ideals, the design of the fairy tale manuals collapses
under the weight of the cultural and historical impact of Hans Christian Andersen and his work in Denmark.