Critical Empathy as Teacher Education Reform

Edited by:
Thomas A. Lucey, Illinois State University
Kathleen S. Cooter, Bellarmine University

Published 2024

This book considers teacher training in social studies and finds it lacking a sense of genuine critical empathy, a sense of shared humanity. Current teacher education generally defines critical thinking as processes which examine topics in greater complexity, but does not prepare candidates to study, confront, and challenge existing social structures. Often in response to state mandates, teacher education programs rate and interpret candidate quality based on their conformance with standards and defined outcomes. There is a lack of tolerance for alternative views that may substantially challenge the often-oppressive hierarchical system of authority in our world.

This volume which includes contributions from social studies educators in the U.S., Canada, and Australia offers the thinking and practice of teacher education scholars who embrace the idea and practices of empathy in the social studies classroom. Defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another”, direct emphasis on empathy represents a vehicle for developing a sense of mutual understanding and questioning of economic and social systems. Developing teacher candidates who comprehend and experience the feelings of diverse education stakeholders provides opportunities for harmonious teaching and learning environments situated in the lives of learners.

CONTENTS
Introduction. SECTION I: EMPATHY AND THE SOCIAL STUDIES. Cultivating Empathy in Teacher Education: Recommendations From Theory and Research, Joseph I. Eisman and Timothy Patterson. Teacher Education and the Quebec History and Citizenship Education Program: The Praxis of Social Justice, Its Constraints, and Its Openings, David Lefrançois and Marc-André Éthier. Negotiating Truths: Curriculum Design for Critical Empathy in Literacy and Numeracy Teacher Education, Carly Sawatzki, Glenn Auld, and Joanne O’Mara. Recapturing the Intended Spirit of Social Studies: Interdisciplinary Methodology in Social Studies Education, Margaret Wilson Gillikin and Ginger Williams. Section I Reflections. SECTION II: EMPATHY AND ECONOMICS. America Runs on Debt: Locating Indebted Citizenship in Social and Financial Education, Erin Adams. What Is an Economic Life? Black Feminist Economics and Empathy in a High School Economics Class, Neil Shanks and Karynecia Conner. Evaluating, Deconstructing, and Re-Making Sticky Economic Metaphors: Welcoming the Death of Trickle-Down Economics, Delandrea Hall, Cory Wright-Maley, and Shakealia Y. Finley. Pluralist Economics, Critical Empathy, and Citizenship: Overcoming the Influence of Mainstream Economics in K–12 Economics and Financial Literacy Classrooms, Katie Kieninger and Michael Kopish. Section II Reflections. About the Contributors.