Approaches to critical thinking in primary education classrooms: A systematic review

Abstract

In this article, we investigate what characterises the international research literature on critical thinking in social studies, science education and language education in primary schools. Through a systematic review of 105 articles published in English between 2010 and 2021, we answer two research questions: 1) What characterises the research literature on critical thinking in primary schools regarding publication rate, geographical origin, method, grade level and school subject? 2) What characterises the studies focusing on classroom practices to develop critical thinking? The latter question includes three sub-questions, focusing on research methods, theoretical grounding and types of classroom approaches. The results from the review show an increased research interest in critical thinking in primary schools since 2017, especially in language education and science education. The publications were unevenly geographically distributed. The bulk of them were conducted in grades 4–6, with grades 1–2 representing the lowest number. A variety of theoretical approaches were represented, but several studies lacked a firm theoretical grounding in critical thinking theory. Through an inductive analysis, classroom approaches were categorised as textual, dialogic, digital or practical. Through the review, we show that the careful selection of subject content that can activate students in critical dialogue can be a fruitful approach to developing young learners’ critical thinking skills to foster well-rounded thinkers with a critical spirit. Further research is needed from a broader range of geographical contexts to probe the connections between different theoretical perceptions of critical thinking and their related concepts and to add knowledge about the development of critical thinking in grades 1–2.