'Because they believed': Students' ideas of historical empathy in Greek Cypriot primary education

What happened in the past is often the result of human behaviour (individual or collective) that was guided by certain ideas, beliefs and intentions, and influenced by the historical context in which it happened. It can be argued that understanding past behaviour is essential for historical underst...

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Main Author: Lukas Perikleous
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: UCL Press 2019-09-01
Series:History Education Research Journal
Online Access:https://www.scienceopen.com/document?vid=147b1d9a-bf9e-43ae-8d33-74d266953cab
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author Lukas Perikleous
author_facet Lukas Perikleous
author_sort Lukas Perikleous
collection DOAJ
description What happened in the past is often the result of human behaviour (individual or collective) that was guided by certain ideas, beliefs and intentions, and influenced by the historical context in which it happened. It can be argued that understanding past behaviour is essential for historical understanding, and therefore students' ideas about making sense of people in the past are important for history education. This article reports on aspects of a broader qualitative study of students' and teachers' ideas of historical empathy. More specifically, the study explores participants' reasoning in terms of the ideas they use to explain the behaviour of groups of people in the past and the present. The sample was drawn from two urban primary schools in Nicosia, Cyprus; 68 students, aged between 8 and 12, and five history teachers in the sample classes participated in it. Pen-and-paper tasks, semi-structured interviews and classroom observations were used as data generation instruments. This article focuses on some of the findings of the analysis of students' responses to pen-and-paper tasks, which asked them to explain religious practices for the treatment of diseases used by two different groups in the past. These findings suggest the existence of ideas of historical empathy identified by previous studies. In this sense, they contribute to the existing evidence of the presence of these ideas in a variety of educational and cultural contexts.
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spelling doaj.art-dc991a3e237e4043a5ccee9d2ee8b73f2022-12-21T23:50:49ZengUCL PressHistory Education Research Journal2631-97132019-09-0110.18546/HERJ.16.2.04'Because they believed': Students' ideas of historical empathy in Greek Cypriot primary educationLukas PerikleousWhat happened in the past is often the result of human behaviour (individual or collective) that was guided by certain ideas, beliefs and intentions, and influenced by the historical context in which it happened. It can be argued that understanding past behaviour is essential for historical understanding, and therefore students' ideas about making sense of people in the past are important for history education. This article reports on aspects of a broader qualitative study of students' and teachers' ideas of historical empathy. More specifically, the study explores participants' reasoning in terms of the ideas they use to explain the behaviour of groups of people in the past and the present. The sample was drawn from two urban primary schools in Nicosia, Cyprus; 68 students, aged between 8 and 12, and five history teachers in the sample classes participated in it. Pen-and-paper tasks, semi-structured interviews and classroom observations were used as data generation instruments. This article focuses on some of the findings of the analysis of students' responses to pen-and-paper tasks, which asked them to explain religious practices for the treatment of diseases used by two different groups in the past. These findings suggest the existence of ideas of historical empathy identified by previous studies. In this sense, they contribute to the existing evidence of the presence of these ideas in a variety of educational and cultural contexts.https://www.scienceopen.com/document?vid=147b1d9a-bf9e-43ae-8d33-74d266953cab
spellingShingle Lukas Perikleous
'Because they believed': Students' ideas of historical empathy in Greek Cypriot primary education
History Education Research Journal
title 'Because they believed': Students' ideas of historical empathy in Greek Cypriot primary education
title_full 'Because they believed': Students' ideas of historical empathy in Greek Cypriot primary education
title_fullStr 'Because they believed': Students' ideas of historical empathy in Greek Cypriot primary education
title_full_unstemmed 'Because they believed': Students' ideas of historical empathy in Greek Cypriot primary education
title_short 'Because they believed': Students' ideas of historical empathy in Greek Cypriot primary education
title_sort because they believed students ideas of historical empathy in greek cypriot primary education
url https://www.scienceopen.com/document?vid=147b1d9a-bf9e-43ae-8d33-74d266953cab
work_keys_str_mv AT lukasperikleous becausetheybelievedstudentsideasofhistoricalempathyingreekcypriotprimaryeducation