Empathy in education : engagement, values and achievement

Empathy in Education discusses the role of empathy in learning throughout all levels of education and its crucial relationship to motivation, values development and achievement, impacting from the micro to the macro levels of society. Using initial research involving interviews with teachers and student teachers in many different contexts, from nursery to sixth form lessons along side neuroscience, psychology and educational research, the author considers the intrinsic nature of affect and empathic human relationships in learning. At a time when politicians are calling for personalized learning and the promotion of good citizenship but are still advocating an intensive, rigid curriculum, in large, one size fits all, classes, this study highlights the inherent contradictions in rhetoric and practice. Cooper offers a detailed study in empathy in teaching and learning which sheds light on the learning process in intricate detail and gives balance to the strong emphasis on mechanistic learning, curriculum and cognition which has dominated the last twenty years of learning theory and sets a foundation for future research into affective and moral issues in learning.