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The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of primary source historical documents used in conjunction with the heuristics associated with historical reasoning (sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization) would lead to a subsequent development of historical empathy. Three intact groups (already formed history classes) from Northeast High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania were studied throughout a baseline and four trials for this study. One group was designated as the experimental condition and received primary source historical documents as well as scaffolding of the historical reasoning heuristics of sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization. The next group was designated as the comparison condition which received the primary source historical documents but no scaffolding on the aforementioned heuristics. The final group was designated as the control condition and received traditional textbook instruction throughout the four main trials of the study. Results showed that mean scores of the heuristics involved in historical reasoning as well as historical empathy increased simultaneously for the experimental as well as the comparison group throughout the study, with the experimental group showing the highest mean gains. However, whether training in the historical reasoning heuristics of sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization lead to historical empathy cannot be conclusively proven from this current study. / Educational Psychology

Historical empathy as a didactic tool in teaching about the Holocaust: A qualitative study on history teachers' didactic design of Holocaust education and challenges they see in relation to this teaching.  The author of the study, which includes 44 pages, is Marcus Johannesson. The survey is aimed at teaching about the Holocaust in a Swedish school context. It was carried out against the background of research that has highlighted that students have difficulties in understanding the Holocaust and its circumstances. Considering this, the aim is to contribute with increased knowledge about how teachers handle teaching about the Holocaust and how they believe that such teaching should be designed to develop students' learning. Furthermore, the aim is to investigate what challenges teachers see in relation to teaching about the Holocaust, as well as how historical empathy as a didactic tool can be helpful for history teachers in their teaching. Another aspect that is important for teachers' teaching about the Holocaust is that anti-Semitic expressions are increasing in society. This is because of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The theory that is therefore applied in this study is Jason Endacott's definition of historical empathy, namely a concept that contains the three aspects of historical context, perspective taking and emotional attachment. The conclusion is that the interviewed teachers' design of Holocaust education to varying extents contains the three aspects of historical empathy, which can improve students' opportunities to understand and learn about the genocide. More conclusions are that the teaching needs to be adapted depending on the student group due to social development, that myths and misconceptions about the Holocaust occur in the respondents' classrooms and that historical empathy as a didactic tool can be helpful for current and future history teachers.

The students of today are entrenched in various digital media; film being one of the foremost of these. If history education is to stay relevant for our students, history lessons should mirror the students’ lives outside of school. For this reason, we find it relevant to study the use of film in history education.     Our study sets out to study if, and how, historical feature films can complement traditional instructional text found in history textbooks. We aim to explore students’ thoughts about the relationship between text and film that cover the same historical context, and chose the suffragette movement in England for this context. We use theory concerning historical empathy to analyze our material, specifically historical empathy as presented by Keith Barton and Linda Levstik, which presents a combination of perspective recognition and dimensions of care. The material consists of two surveys and one group interview. We studied one school class. The first survey corresponds with the text, and the other with the film. The group interview took place just after they had seen the film. Our key findings are that students’ expressions of perspective recognition are similar in both surveys. The film survey shows an increase in the category care for, which we link to the filmic power of immersion. In the interview, however, students can deliberate, and thus weigh high levels of perspective recognition with complex aspects of care. In the interview, the students weren’t always able to achieve higher levels of perspective recognition. We link this to the importance of teacher-led instruction before film viewing. Dimensions of care related to students’ willingness to act, and care to, was the most elusive category. Further research would be required to study this dimension.

The dissertation explores middle-school students' abilities to engage in historical thinking. I dispute the Hallam-Piaget model, which discourages analytical thinking through the assumption that children lack skills to think critically about history. My historical narrative inquiry model (1) teaches procedural knowledge (the process of "doing" history); (2) enhances interpretative skills; (3) cultivates historical perspectives based upon evidentiary history; and (4) encourages student authorship of historical narratives. In the fall semester of 2006, with a classroom of twenty-five seventh-graders, I initiated a research study designed to explore the impact of the historical narrative inquiry model through a sequence of thirty-two lessons. The lessons involved small- and large-group activities, including oral presentations, discussions about primary documents, and consideration of the relation between narratology and the creation of written history. Students generated their own historical narratives in order to articulate their perspectives. Eight students having varied reading-level proficiency served as primary participants in the study. Each of these students received pre- and post-intervention interviews. Outcomes reflected the enhancement of pedagogy intended to facilitate historical thinking and historical empathy in the classroom.

Motion pictures have been used in the history classroom for a long time. Despite that fact, there are not a lot written about how this can be done. This essay, therefore, explores the possibility of a theoretical frame with the aim for a motion picture to promote the development of historical empathy among students. It is not deployed in a classroom setting; however, it seeks to study the preconditions in how it can be done. The study draws from history didactics and film analysis to study Michael Haneke´s The White Ribbon from 2009. Haneke is renown in the academic world where his movies draw a lot of attention. The reason is that his movies have a tendency to depict the ongoing decay of our society. This study aims at intertwining theory of history didactics with film analysis in order to promote the development of historical empathy among students. The theoretical frame the essay provides show a possibility in how a motion picture can be used for this purpose in the history classroom.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka populärkulturens didaktiska egenskaper. Detta görs utifrån resonemang av historielärare på mellanstadiet.Syftet utgår från tre forskningsfrågor där tanken är att undersöka om lärarna använder populärkultur i sin historieundervisning och hur de i så fall motiverar användandet av detta. Den sista forskningsfrågan undersöker om lärarna anser att populärkultur kan bidra med förmågor och kunskaper hos eleverna, så som historisk empati. Undersökningen görs genom kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer med fem historielärare på mellanstadiet, lärarna är i olika åldrar och har arbetat som historielärare i olika utsträckning. Det är lärarnas svar som sedan analyseras utifrån forskning om populärkultur samt historisk empati. Resultatet visar att lärarna är positiva till användande av några former av populärkultur i historieundervisningen. Dock framkommer det också olika slags problemfaktorer, så som tidsbrist, lärarnas engagemang samt deras syn på populärkultur, vilket spelar en stor roll i användandet av populärkultur i undervisningen.

The purpose of this qualitative interview study is to understand junior high school students' perception of the use of historical video games for learning and from this identify and analyze how the students perceives story-driven historical games in relation to developing historical empathy and a sense of history. The study also seeks to understand student’s perception of potential challenges with using historical digital games for learning purposes. The theoretical basis of the study is grounded in a history didactic perspective on game-based learning and a genealogical approach to history. The study uses semi-structured interviews with five junior high school students aged fourteen to fifteen years. The study found that all of the students who participated in the study had a perception that historical games may increase students’ understanding of history and that the increased sense of understanding takes place above all through the games ability to let students immerse themselves in the games story. Furthermore, the study shows that most students had a perception that the games allowed them to be virtually present in history, which can help students view the world and the people in it from different perspectives, to reflect on history, see connections between different historical events and to form their own thoughts about history. Perceptions of several potential challenges with using the games as teaching aids were also found. The most distinctive challenges according to the students were an increased distractibility, requirements for prior knowledge and interest in the games, structural challenges, and a perceived lack of historical accuracy in the games.

Vi ville undersöka några svenska gymnasielärare i historias attityder till att låta sina elever arbeta kontrafaktiskt. Vilka svårigheter de ser med arbetet, hur de arbetar eller kan tänka sig att arbeta med det och om de såg några specifika för- eller nackdelar jämfört med mer traditionell undervisning? För att ta reda på detta utförde vi kvalitativa intervjuer medyrkesverksamma lärare. Vi hörde inte av oss på förhand om huruvida de arbetat kontrafaktiskt tidigare och vi väntade oss en viss skepsis mot arbetssättet. Men vad vi fann var att även om inte alla medvetet arbetat med det så var alla insatta i, och positiva till, metoden. Och trots attde var eniga om att det innebär stora svårigheter att arbeta kontrafaktiskt så vittnade de samtidigt om stora fördelar, såsom effektivt utvecklande av historiemedvetande, främjande avhistorisk empati, samt motverkande av historisk determinism. / We wanted to investigate some Swedish high school history teachers' attitudes towards letting their pupils work counterfactually. Which difficulties they see with this kind of work, how they are working or can fancy themselves working with it and whether they see any specific pros or cons compared to more traditional education. To find these answers we conducted a series of qualitative interviews with working teachers. We did not inquire before hand as to whether they ever had been working counterfactually and we expected some degree of scepticism towards this way to work. But what we found was that even though not all of them had tried working this way, they were all well informed on the subject and favourable towards the method. And despite being unanimous about the difficulties of working counterfactually,they testified to the great advantages to doing so, such as benefiting the development of a historical consciousness, promoting historical empathy and countering historical determinism.

The objective of this study was to gain knowledge concerning what up-per secondary students need to learn to be able to construct historical explanations while working with historical sources. The study also explored how teaching could be designed to enhance student’s capabilities. The history didactical framework took its departure in the British Historical Thinking-tradition and the methodology was based on Learning Study, an iterative research method for analysis and enhancement of teaching and learning. Empirical data originates from one Learning Study undertaken in an upper secondary school performed in cooperation with three teachers teaching three different classes. The bulk of data consists of student interviews, video recordings from research lessons and essay texts performed by the students before and after research lessons. Variation Theory was used to analyse teaching and learning with the purpose to identify critical aspects of what characterizes the capabilities and what the students needed to learn to reason about causation, interpret and use historical sources. The historical content was framed on the late 19th century phenomenon known as The Scramble for Africa where the students were supposed to reason on the causes for thescramble while working with a variety of primary sources. The methodological design of the research-lessons was based on a combination of principles from Variation Theory and Learning Activity with the ambition to form an educational practice that would allow students to discern the critical aspects and advance their learning. The results show that the students who participated in this study needed to distinguish the following critical aspects to be able to construct Historical Explanations when working with sources: Cause To distinguish temporal aspects of historical change not to confuse causes and consequences. To distinguish that historical change are caused by societal structures and intervention by historical actors and do not occur by itself. To distinguish that historical change predominantly have their origin in several causes and cannot be reduced to single causes. To distinguish that historical explanations need support from evidence. Interpret and Use Historical Sources To asses sources critically rather than view them as neutral information. To contextualize sources to avoid presentism and literal interpretations. To corroborate sources to be able to validate claims and present different perspectives in a historical explanation. To see that values and limitations of sources depend on the historical questions we seek an answer to. To distinguish the difference between authentic sources and reliable claims.