Hur kan gymnasieelever bli empatiska? : En interventionsstudie om hur historisk empati kan introduceras och beprövas på gymnasieskolan i arbetet med historiska källor

Sammanfattning

The purpose of this thesis is to study how historical empathy can be developed through work with historical sources and examine how historical empathy is expressed when working with sources. The study is based on an intervention study conducted in a class of second-year students in a Swedish upper secondary school. Sara Karn’s theory, Five Cognitive-Affective Elements of Historical Empathy, is used as inspiration for the design of the intervention and the construction of a coding scheme used to analyse students’ answers and progression. The intervention takes place over three classroom sessions. During the first session, the students work with the American Declaration of Independence. During the second session, the students are introduced to historical empathy as a concept and work with an article about chimney boys. During the third session, the students are examined on the Industrial Revolution, emigration and Sweden’s democratisation. The results show that students are able to express historical empathy, but the degree to which they express it depends on the type of assignment and the way questions are formulated. The study also shows that the intervention enables students to express historical empathy, but the use of only written assignments and a limited number of primary sources may hinder further progression. Lastly, the study shows that a coding scheme can be used to analyse the progression of students’ historical empathy, but more comparable assignments and questions may be needed to provide a more reliable analysis of progression.