The aim of this study is to examine high school teachers views and reasonings about the concept “historical empathy”. The previous research and theoretical aspect show us that the definition of the concept is unclear, as so what capabilities the student ought to develop. This study marks two different views of historical empathy: linje 1 where historical empathy are based simply on empirical methods and capabilities and linje 2 where personal interest and emotion towards the subject is underlined. The theory is based on the viewings from historism and postmodernity, the reality is relative and not to be generalized. The method consists by interviews with six high school teachers. The result shows us that the teachers define historical empathy as a deeper understanding for historical actors and their choices. They find multiple ways of working towards historical empathy and the capabilities that are required to be showed by the students are both based on cognitive and emotional understanding.

Syftet med detta examensarbete var att försöka undersöka hur f-3 lärare ser på yngre barns förmåga att förstå historia samt hur de undervisar för att utveckla elevernas historiska kunskaper och ämnesförståelse. Detta genom att med semistrukturerade intervjuer fråga två lärare om hur de väljer att planera och undervisa i ämnet för att skapa förutsättningar för eleverna att utveckla ett historiemedvetande. Detta tillvägagångssätt gör dock att resultatet inte går att generalisera. Resultatet kan tolkas som att de båda lärarna strävar efter att möta det centrala innehållet för att eleverna ska nå målen inom ämnet och få en så god kronologisk överblick som möjligt. Men att mycket av den utvecklingspsykologiska tanken kring hur yngre barn kan tillägna sig historieundervisningen verkar leva kvar. / The purpose of this thesis was to try to investigate how f-3 teachers view younger children's ability to understand history and how they teach to develop students' historical knowledge and subject understanding. This by using semi-structured interviews to ask two teachers about how they choose to plan and teach the subject in order to create conditions for the students to develop a historical consciousness. However, this approach makes the result impossible to generalize. The result can be interpreted as the two teachers striving to meet the central content in order for the students to achieve the goals within the subject and get as good a chronological overview as possible. But that much of the developmental psychology idea about how younger children can acquire history education seems to remain.