'You don't go in their place': historical empathy in education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29393/RH31-3YDLP10003Keywords:
Historical empathy, criticism of historical empathy in education, philosophy of mind, philosophy of history, students’ ideasAbstract
Writing about historical empathy and its place in education in the 1980s, Denis Shemilt pointed out that ‘the theory of “empathetic reconstruction” excites the devotion of some and the censure of others. This article discusses the debates that the concept’s introduction in the English educational system caused and the key objections against its implementation in history teaching. These objections, which in some cases are voiced even today, have to do with the concept’s complex meaning, the idea that understanding people in the past is impossible, and pessimistic views about students’ ability to make sense of past behaviour. In order to counter these objections this article discusses the idea of empathy in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of history and suggests a definition of the concept in ways that distinguish between problematic and helpful notions related to the concept. It also discusses available research findings about students’ ideas of the concept.
Downloads
References
Cited References
Ashby, Rosalyn and Edwards, Chris, «Challenges facing the disciplinary tradition», in Contemporary Public Debates Over History Education, edited for Irene Nakou and Isabel Barca, 27-46. United states of America: The Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2010.
Ashby, Rosalyn and Lee, Peter, «Children's concepts of empathy and understanding in history», in The History Curriculum for Teachers, edited for Christopher Portal, 62-88. London: Falmer Press, 1987.
Atkinson, Alan, «Do good historians have feelings?», in The historian's conscience: Australian historians on the ethics of history, edited for Stuart Macintyre, 17-27. Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 2004.
Austin Harrington, Austin, «Dilthey, Empathy and Verstehen a Contemporary Reappraisal», European Journal of Social Theory 4, no 3 (2001): 311-329.
Barton, Keith and Levstik, Linda, Teaching History for the Common Good. Ney York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004.
Berti, Anna, Baldin Isabella and Toneatti, Laura, «Empathy in history. Understanding a past institution (ordeal) in children and young adults when description and rationale are provided», Contemporary Educational Psychology 34, no 4 (2009): 278-288.
Bierhoff, Hans-Werner, Prosocial Behaviour. London: Psychology Press, 2022.
Boddington, Tony, «Empathy and the teaching of history», British Journal of Educational Studies 28, Nº 1 (1980): 13-19.
Chapman, Arthur, «Introduction: Historical knowing and the ‘knowledge turn’», in Knowing History in Schools: Powerful knowledge and the powers of knowledge, edited for Arthur Chapman, 1-31. London: UCL Press, 2021.
Collingwood, Robin, The idea of history. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Cooper, Hilary, History 3–11: A guide for teachers. London: David Fulton Publishers, 2007.
Cooper, Hilary, «Historical thinking and cognitive development in the teaching of history», in Teaching History, edited for Hillary Bourdillon, 101-121. London: Open University Press, 1994.
Council of Europe, Ethics and Empathy (2021), accessed 22 February 2022, https://www.coe.int/en/web/digital-citizenship-education/ethics-and-empathy.
Council of the European Union, «Council Recommendation of 22 May 2018 on key competences for lifelong learning», Official Journal of the European Union (2018), accessed 22 February 2022, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018H0604(01)andrid=7.
Crosby, Christi and Allen Bergin, David, Child and Adolescent Development in Your Classroom. Independence, KY: Cengage Learning, 2015.
Cunningham, Deborah, Professional Practice and Perspectives in The Teaching of Historical Empathy, unpublished PhD thesis. Oxford: University of Oxford, 2003.
Davis, Ozro, «In pursuit of historical empathy» in Historical empathy and perspective taking in social studies, edited for Ozro Davis, Elizabeth Yeager and Stuart Foster, 1-12. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.
Davison, Martyn, «Teaching historical empathy and the 1915 Gallipoli campaign», in History matters: teaching and learning history in New Zealand secondary schools in the 21st century, edited for Michael Harcourt and Mark Sheehan, 11-31. Wellington, NZ: ZCER Press, 2012.
DeSilva, W.A., «The formation of historical concepts through contextual cues», Educational Review 24, no 3 (1972): 174-182.
Dickinson, Alaric, «What should history be?», in School subject teaching: the history and future of the curriculum, edited for Ashley Kent, 1-25. London and New York: Kogan Page, 2000.
Dickinson, Alaric and Peter J. Lee, «Making sense of history», in Learning History, edited for A. K. Dickinson and P. J. Lee and P. J. Rogers, 117-154. London: Heinemann, 1984.
Dickinson, Alaric and Peter Lee, «Understanding and research», in History Teaching and Historical Understanding, edited for A. K. Dickinson, P. J. Lee. London: Heinemann, 1978.
Dilthey, Wilhelm «The Understanding of Other Persons and Their Life-Expressions», in The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German traditions from the Enlightenment to Present, edited for Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, 148-164. New York: Continuum, 2006.
Doppen, Frans, «Teaching and learning multiple perspectives: The atomic Bomb», The Social Studies 91, no 4 (2000): 159-169.
Downey, Matthew, «Perspective taking and historical thinking: Doing history in a fifth-grade classroom», paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, 5-9. San Francisco, CA: American Educational Research, 1995.
Downey, Matthew and Levstik, Linda, «Teaching and learning history: The research base», Social Education 52, no 5 (1988): 336-342.
Droysen, Johann, «History and the Historical Method», in The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German traditions from the Enlightenment to Present, edited for Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, 118-131. New York: Continuum, 2006.
Endacott, Jason and Brooks, Sarah, «Historical Empathy Perspectives and Responding to the Past», in The Wiley International Handbook of History Teaching and Learning, edited for Scott Metzger and Lauren McArthur Harris, 223-226. New Jersey: Willey Blackwell, 2013.
Epstein, Terry, «The arts of history: An analysis of secondary school students' interpretations of the arts in historical contexts», Journal of Curriculum and Supervision 9, no 2 (1994): 174-194.
Foster, Stuart, «Historical empathy in theory and practice: some final thoughts», in Historical empathy and perspective taking in social studies, edited for Ozro Davis, Elizabeth Yeager and Stuart Foster, 167-179. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.
Foster, Stuart, «Politics, parallels and perennial curriculum questions: The battle over school history in England and the United States», Curriculum Journal 9, no 2 (1998): 153-164.
Foster, Stuart and Yeager, Elizabeth, «The role of empathy in the development of historical understanding», International Journal of Social Education 13, no 11 (1998): 1-7.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method, 2nd edition. New York: Continuum, 2004.
Gallese, Vittorio, «The roots of empathy: the shared manifold hypothesis and the neural basis of intersubjectivity», Psychopathology 36, no 4 (2003): 171- 180.
Hammond, Kate, «The knowledge that “flavours” a claim: Towards building and assessing historical knowledge on three scales», Teaching History 157 (2014): 18–24.
Harris, Richard and Foreman-Peck, Lorraine, «Stepping into other peoples’ shoes: teaching and assessing empathy in the secondary history curriculum», International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research 4, no 2 (2004):1-14.
Hartley, Leslie, The Go- Between. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1953.
Hartmann, Ulrike and Hasselhorn, Marcus, «Historical perspective taking. A standardized measure for an aspect of students' historical thinking», Learning and individual differences 18, no 2 (2008): 264-270.
Harwood, Michelle and Farrar, Jeffrey, «Conflicting emotions: The connection between affective perspective taking and theory of mind», British Journal of Developmental Psychology 24, no 2 (2006): 401–418.
Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
Huijgen, Tim, van Boxtel Carla, van de Grift Wam and Holthuis, Paul, «Testing elementary and secondary school students’ ability to perform historical perspective taking: The constructing of valid and reliable measure instruments», European Journal of Psychology of Education 29, no 4, (2014): 653–672.
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, «On the task of the historian», in The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German traditions from the Enlightenment to Present, edited for Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, 98-117. New York: Continuum, 2006.
Husbands, Chris, What Is History Teaching?: Language, Ideas and Meaning in Learning about the Past. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press, 1996.
Husserl, Edmund, Formal and transcendental logic. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969.
Jenkins, Keith, Re-thinking history. London: Routledge, 1991.
Jenkins, Keith and Brickley, Peter, «Reflections on the empathy debate», Teaching History 55 (1989): 18- 23.
Johnsen, Harald and Olsen, Bjornar, «Hermeneutics and Archaeology: On the Philosophy of Contextual Archaeology», American Antiquity 57, no 3 (1992): 419-436.
Kim, Sung Ho, «Max Weber», in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited for Edward Zalta, 1-5. San Francisco, CA: Stanford, 2008.
Kirschner, Paul, Sweller, Jhon and Clark, Richard, «Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching», Educational Psychologist 41, no 2 (2006): 75-86.
Knight, Peter, «A study of children's understanding of people in the past», Educational Review 41, no 3 (1989): 207-219.
LaCapra, Dominick, Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore, MD: JHU Press, 2001.
Lee, Peter, «Putting principles into practice: understanding history», in How Students Learn: history, mathematics and science in the classroom, edited for Suzanne Donovan and John Bransford, 79-178. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2005.
Lee, Peter, «Why learn history?», in Learning History, edited for A. K. Dickinson, P. J. Lee and P. J. Rogers, London: Heinemann, 1984.
Lee, Peter, «History Teaching and Philosophy of History», History and Theory 22, no 4 (1983): 19-49.
Lee, Peter, Ashby, Rosalyn and Sheldon, Nicola, «Interview with Peter Lee and Ros Ashby», in History in Education Project (2009), accessed 22 February 2022, https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-education/browse/interviews/interview-peter-lee-and-ros-ashby-3-september-2009.html.
Lee, Peter and Ashby, Rosalyn, «Empathy, perspective taking, and rational understanding», in Historical empathy and perspective taking in social studies, edited for Ozro Davis, Elizabeth Yeager and Stuart Foster, 21-50. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.
Lee, Peter, Dickinson Alaric and Ashby, Rosalyn, «Project Chata: Concepts of History and Teaching Approaches at Key Stages 2 and 3 Children's Understanding of 'Because' and the Status of Explanation in History», Teaching History 82 (1996): 6-11.
Lee, Peter, Dickinson Alaric and Ashby, Rosalyn, «’Just another emperor’: Understanding action in the past», International Journal of Educational Research 27, no 3 (1997): 233-244.
Lee, Peter and Shemilt, Denis, «The concept that dares not speak its name: Should empathy come out of the closet? », Teaching History 143 (2011): 39-48.
Lévesque, Stéphane, Thinking historically: educating students for the twenty-first century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008.
Levinas, Emmanuel, Time and the Other. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1990.
Low-Beer, Ann, «Empathy and history», Teaching History 55 (1989): 8- 12.
Lowenthal, David, «Dilemmas and delights of learning history», in Knowing, Teaching, and Learning History: National and International Perspectives, edited for Peter N. Stearns and Peter Seixas and Sam Wineburg, 74. New York: New York University Press, 2000.
Lowenthal, David, The Past is a Foreign Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Macionis, John and M. Linda, Sociology. Toronto: Pearson Canada Inc., 2011.
Makkreel, Rudolph, «Wilhelm Dilthey», in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited for Edward Zalta, 1-6. San Francisco, CA: Stanford: 2011.
McAleavy, Tony, «The use of sources in school history 1910-1998: A critical perspective», Teaching History 91 (1998): 10-16.
Megill, Allan, Historical knowledge, historical error a contemporary guide to practice. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Mill, John, An examination of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy and of the principal philosophical questions discussed in his writings, 3rd edition. Buffalo: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1867.
Moyn, Samuel, «Empathy in History, Empathizing with Humanity», History and Theory 45, no 3 (2006): 397-415.
Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt, «Introduction: Language, Mind, and Artifact: An Outline of Hermeneutic Theory Since the Enlightenment», in The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German traditions from the Enlightenment to Present, edited for Kurt Mueller-Vollmer. New York: Continuum, 2006.
Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), Research review series: history (2021). Accessed 22 February 2022, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/research-review-series-history/research-review-series-history.
Oswald, Patricia, «The effects of cognitive and affective perspective taking on empathic concern and altruistic helping», The Journal of Social Psychology 136, no 5 (1996): 613-623.
Peel, Edwin, «Understanding School Material», Educational Review 24, no 3 (1972): 163-173.
Perikleous, Lukas, ‘They were not as rational as we are today’: Students' and teachers' ideas of historical empathy in Greek Cypriot Primary Education, unpublished PhD thesis. London: UCL Institute of Education, 2022.
Perikleous, Lukas, «‘Because they believed’: Students’ ideas of historical empathy in Greek Cypriot primary education», History Education Research Journal 16, no 4 (2019): 195–208.
Perikleous, Lukas, «Why did They Treat Their Children Like This?: A Case Study of 9-12 year-old Greek Cypriot Students’ Ideas of Historical Empathy», in The Future of the Past: Why history education matters, edited for Lukas Perikleous and Denis Shemilt, 217-252. Nicosia: Association for Historical Dialogue and Research, 2011.
Perikleous, Lukas, «Deanna Troi and the TARDIS: Does Historical Empathy have a Place in Education?», History Education Research Journal 12, no 2 (2004): 22-30.
Peter Knight, Peter, «Empathy: concept, confusion and consequence in a national curriculum», Oxford Review of Education 15 (1989): 41-53.
Pingel, Falk, «The Holocaust in textbooks: from a European to a global event», in Holocaust Education in a Global Context, edited for Karel Fracapane and Matthias Haß, 77-86. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2014.
Psychology Today, Empathy (2022), Accessed 22 February 2022, https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/basics/empathy.
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, History: Programme of study for key stage 3 and attainment target. London: QCA, 2007.
Retz, Tyson, «A moderate hermeneutical approach to empathy in history education», Educational Philosophy and Theory 47, no 3 (2015): 214–26.
Scheler, Max, The nature of sympathy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich, «General hermeneutics», in The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German traditions from the Enlightenment to Present, edited for Kurt Mueller-Vollmer,72-97. New York: Continuum, 2006.
Schütz, Alfred, The phenomenology of the social world. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1967.
Seixas, Peter, «Conceptualizing the Growth of Historical Understanding», in The Handbook of Education and Human Development: New Models of Learning, Teaching and Schooling, edited for David Olson and Nancy Torrance, 765-783. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.
Seixas, Peter, Gibson Lindsay and Ercikan, Kadriye, «A Design Process for Assessing Historical Thinking: The Case of a One-Hour Test», in New Directions in Assessing Historical Thinking, edited for Kadriye Ercikan and Peter Seixas, 206-226. New York and London: Routledge, 2015.
Shemilt, Denis, «Beauty and the philosopher: Empathy in history and classroom», in Learning History, edited for or Alaric Dickinson, Peter Lee and Peter Rogers, 39-84. London: Heinman Educational Books, 1984.
Shemilt, Denis, History 13-16 evaluation study. Edinburgh: Holmes McDougall, 1980.
Shemilt, Denis and Sheldon, Nichola, «Interview with Denis Shemilt», History in Education Project (2009). Accessed 22 February 2022, https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/3175/.
Skinner, Quentin, Visions of Politics, Volume 1: Regarding Method. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Stueber, Karsten, «Empathy», in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited for Edward Zalta, 11-2. San Francisco, CA: Stanford: 2019.
Stueber, Karsten, Rediscovering Empathy: Agency, Folk Psychology, and the Human Sciences. Toronto: Bradford Book, 2010.
Stueber, Karsten, «Empathy», in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited for Edward Zalta, 1-2. San Francisco, CA: Stanford: 2008.
Sylvester, David and Sheldon, Nichola, «Interview with David Sylvester», in History in Education Project (2009). Accessed 22 February 2022, https://archives.history.ac.uk/history-in-education/browse/interviews/interview-david-sylvester-7-july-2009.html.
Thatcher, Margaret, The Downing Street Years. New York: Harper Collins, 1993.
Tosh, John, Why History Matters. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008.
Trimbur, John, «Cultural Literacy and Cultural Anxiety: E. D. Hirsch's Discourse of Crisis», Journal of Teaching Writing 6, no 2 (1987): 345-55.
UCL Centre For Holocaust Education, Agency and responsibility: Perpetrators and collaborators. Accessed 22 February 2022, https://www.holocausteducation.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Research-Briefing-1.pdf.
United Nations, Is Kindness the Secret to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals? (2019). Accessed 22 February 2022, https://www.un.org/en/un-chronicle/kindness-secret-achieving-sustainable-development-goals.
VanSledright, Bruce, Bruce VanSledright, «From empathic regard to self-understanding: Im/positionality, empathy, and historical contextualization», in Historical empathy and perspective taking in social studies, edited for Ozro Davis, Elizabeth Yeager and Stuart Foster, 51-68. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.
Webster, Merriam, Empathy (2022). Accessed 21 February 2022, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy.
Whittington, Dale, «What Have 17-Year-Olds Known in the Past?», American Educational Research Journal 28, no 4 (1991): 759–780.
Willingham, Daniel, Why don't students like school? A cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009.
Wilschut, Arie, «History at the mercy of politicians and ideologies: Germany, England, and the Netherlands in the 19th and 20th centuries», Journal of Curriculum Studies 42, no 5 (2010): 693-723.
Winch, Peter, The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958.
Wineburg, Sam, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts. California: Temple University Press, 2001.
Wineburg, Sam and Wilson, Suzanne, «Subject-matter knowledge in the teaching of history», in Advances in Research on Teaching, edited for Jere Brophy, 1-15. Greenwich, Conn: JAI Press, 1991.
Wispé, Lauren, «History of the concept of empathy», in Empathy and its development, edited for Nancy Eisenberg and Janet Strayer, 17-37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Zahavi, Dan, «Empathy, Embodiment and Interpersonal Understanding: From Lipps to Schutz», Inquiry 53, no 3 (2010): 285- 306.
Zahavi, Dan, «Beyond empathy: Phenomenological approaches to intersubjectivity», Journal of consciousness studies 8, no 5 (2001): 151- 167.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
