Laurance J. Splitter studied at Monash University and the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He is currently Professor of Education and Philosophy at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, where he is also Director of General Education. He is a renowned scholar and educator in the field of Philosophy for Children and was responsible for introducing philosophy into Australian schools and classrooms during the 1980s and 1990s. He has published widely on such topics as transforming classrooms into communities of inquiry, values and citizenship education, dialogue and issues relating to identity, citizenship and culture and cultivating the life of the mind. He reaches, with one hand, into the murky but intriguing depths of analytic philosophy and, with the other, to the practical reality of classrooms, teachers and learners, in an attempt to sharpen the way students and teachers think about important issues. He also seeks to reconcile his esteem for family, friends and colleagues with his suspicion of collectives, nations, traditions and roles.