Philosophising with children in the form of implementing the Community of Inquiry (Matthews 1984) is a practice supporting democratic discourse (Weber 2013) and is increasingly used in schools such as preschools and daycare centers. Internationally this is often realised according to Lipman's concept. Content impulses for this are provided by short philosophical stories, such as "Harry Stottlemeier's discovery" (Lipman 2009).

In addition, picture books and picture cards are increasingly analysed for their potential for philosophising with children and are also used in practice. Still little use has been made of digital stimuli to initiate philosophical conversations. In October 2022, in a preliminary study with a group of 20 students, the first own digital picture impulses for philosophising with 5 to 6-year-olds were developed; these are small, animated films of 3-4 minutes. Due to current political developments, the content focused on the topics of friendship and enmity as well as peace and war. The aim of the development of these didactic miniatures was, on the one hand, that the students themselves could dive deeply into the content of the discussion of these topics and, on the other hand, that they could gain initial experience in philosophical discussion with children and reflect on this. In addition to the self-developed film, the students selected an analogue image stimulus, which they also integrated into the conversation, in order to also look at whether the type of medium (digital or analogue) has an influence on the quality of the conversation in the analysis of the conversations. In total, four films were developed and six interviews were conducted with the children.

The students were introduced to the possibilities of developing animated films and to the basics of philosophising with children by trained specialists in the form of two full-day workshops. In the following, the students developed their own animated films on a third day and selected an additional analogue image stimulus for each conversation. A conversation guide was developed in each case to implement films and picture stimulus with day-care children aged 5-6 years in the Picture Book and Learning Lab at HAW Hamburg in a total of six conversations with the children (November-December 2022). The conversations were video-recorded, transcribed, and qualitatively as well as quantitatively content-analysed (Kuckartz 2014) using the program MAXQDA. Questions for the analysis of the conversations: 1) Which concepts of friendship and enmity as well as war and peace do the children name in the conversations? 2) What potential does the didactic linking of philosophising with children with digital media offer? (Comparison of the digital and the non-digital parts). 3. Can philosophising with children initiated by (animated) pictures contribute to the development of democratic skills? Categories were formed deductively and inductively partly based on categories from Alt (2019).

The results of the evaluation with MAXQDA will be available by February 2023 so that they can be presented at the conference. In a first review of the material, it became clear that children as young as 5-6 years old are able to enter into dialogue about the topic of friendship and enmity in a differentiated way. They named various aspects that are important to them, such as experiencing friendship as a community, mutual support, common interests, and even physical appearance was named as a criterion for choosing a friend. The topic of war and peace was still very abstract for the participating children, but initial results are available here as well. The use of digital or non-digital picture stimuli does not seem to have any effect on the quality of the children's contributions to the conversation, according to an initial review of the material in this small sample. The conversational guidance with the philosophical question impulses used by them represented a decisive influencing factor, as can be shown on the basis of the evaluation of the questions asked. The children showed democratic skills on different levels. On the one hand, it is clear from the dialog itself that the participating children have already learned basic rules of conversation and, on the other hand, that they are already able to argue. Here, too, it becomes clear that the leadership of the conversation has a great influence on whether a discursive space can unfold. Overall, philosophical conversation implemented in the form of the Community of Inquiry offers potential for the acquisition and practice of important competencies for the democratic community. The prerequisites for success will then be presented in more detail in this paper.

Alt, Katrin (2019): Sprachbildung im philosophischen Gespräch mit Kindern. Opladen: Budrich Verlag. Lipman, Matthew (2009): Harry Stottlemeiers Entdeckung. Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag Kuckartz, Udo (2014): Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Methoden, Praxis, Computerunterstützung. 2. Auflage. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa. Matthews, Gareth (1984): Dialogues with children. London: Harvard University Press. Weber, Barbara (2013): Philosophieren mit Kindern zum Thema Menschenrechte. Vernunft und Mitgefühl als Grundvoraussetzungen einer demokratischen Dialogkultur. München/Freiburg: Verlag Karl Alber