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   Book Info

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Historical Empathy and Perspective Taking in the Social Studies  
Author: O. L. Davis, Jr.
ISBN: 0847698122
Format: Handover
Publish Date: June, 2005
 
     
     
   Book Review

Book Description
Making the historical past come alive for students is a goal of most social studies teachers. Many youth find the people and events and movements portrayed in their textbooks to be wooden, remote, and empty. For history to become alive to them, students seek personal meanings as they use knowledge of context and ponder details. Currently most school history programs emphasize knowledge acquisition at the expense of these personal constructions of meaning. This new collection of essays provides practical assistance in the search for a more robust teaching of history and the social studies. Contributors to this volume offer insights from the discipline of history about the nature of empathy and the necessity of examining perspectives on the past. On the basis of recent classroom research, they suggest tested guides to more robust teaching. They also employ examples from classroom practice about how teachers can facilitate students' consideration of multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives when seeking historical meanings. The contributors insist that with experienced history and social studies teachers, students can learn many historical details and, with the use of empathy, develop deepened and textured interpretations of the history that they study.

About the Author
O. L. Davis, Jr. is Catherine Mae Parker Centennial Professor of Curriculum and Instruction. Elizabeth Anne Yeager is associate professor of social studies education at the University of Florida. Stuart J. Foster is associate professor of social science education at the University of Georgia.




Historical Empathy and Perspective Taking in the Social Studies

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Making the historical past come alive for students is a goal of most social studies teachers. Many youth find the people and events and movements portrayed in their textbooks to be wooden, remote, and empty. For history to become alive to them, students seek personal meanings as they use knowledge of context and ponder details. Currently most school history programs emphasize knowledge acquisition at the expense of these personal constructions of meaning. This new collection of essays provides practical assistance in the search for a more robust teaching of history and the social studies. Contributors to this volume offer insights from the discipline of history about the nature of empathy and the necessity of examining perspectives on the past. On the basis of recent classroom research, they suggest tested guides to more robust teaching. They also employ examples from classroom practice about how teachers can facilitate students' consideration of multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives when seeking historical meanings. The contributors insist that with experienced history and social studies teachers, students can learn many historical details and, with the use of empathy, develop deepened and textured interpretations of the history that they study.

Author Biography: O. L. Davis, Jr. is Catherine Mae Parker Centennial Professor of Curriculum and Instruction. Elizabeth Anne Yeager is associate professor of social studies education at the University of Florida. Stuart J. Foster is associate professor of social science education at the University of Georgia.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews

Nine essays discuss the deployment of empathy in history education, a shift from simply teaching history as "the facts." Focusing on elementary and secondary education, the contributors discuss what historical empathy is (a way to understand why people in the past acted as they did, not just how they acted) and is not (a process of identifying with people from the past). The work describes the theory behind historical empathy and also offers techniques that have been used in classrooms to encourage a deeper understanding of history. The contributors are academics based in the US and UK. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

     



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