Communities have their own set of cultural values that make their way into their classrooms and serve as criteria for the labeling of "insider" or "outsider." This article describes how critical empathy can allow the barriers between these constructs to be broken down as students are given the chance not only to listen but to…

Building on research showing social-emotional benefits from a single live theater performance, this study tests for significant differences in pre to post social-cognitive outcomes among a racially and economically diverse sample of young audiences who attended the same theater performance with or without additional pre- and post-show educational…

Philosophy for Children (P4C) hopes to cultivate democratic dialogue as well as critical, creative, and caring thinking; the latter of which has been associated with students' social and emotional competencies (SECs) like empathy and perspective-taking. Yet, empirical, randomized studies on the effectiveness of P4C on students' SECs and sense of…

This study explored how adopting an empathy education framework and strategies for teacher empathy modeling and student-centered learning experiences cultivates more empathy in middle school classrooms. This study extended the work of Snead et al. (2016) entitled "Challenge Course Work around Teaching Empathy in the Classroom."…

This study is an aesthetic inquiry, as part of a middle school visual arts class, from the standpoint of Maxine Greene's aesthetic perspective in education. By adopting Maxine Greene's perspective, affective learning comes to the fore along with cognitive learning, and accentuates multiple realities through the imagination through the research…

The present study examined whether and to what degree empathy increased in adolescents who participated in a high-intensity writing program over the course of a year. Data for this study came from writing samples of a randomly selected group of middle-grade students (n = 61) collected at three different time points to answer whether: (1) it was…

Research indicates that social isolation among youth is on the rise and not only impacts a child's self-esteem, but also plays a key role in health and academic performance. A 2013 study published in the American Journal of Public Health linked social isolation with depression, loss of sleep, eating disorders, and poor cardiovascular health. In…

Despite the use of various anti-bullying programs, bullying continues to plague middle schools. However, there is an approach to bullying that complements other programs and can be easily integrated into course curriculum. This approach uses young adult novels to encourage adolescents to use perspective taking and empathy building through…

This study examines the interaction between students' expressions of empathy and the use of STEM integration in the science classroom. Third space theory provides the context from which this classroom ethnographic qualitative study took place, as it provided an environment in which discourse among students' sociocultural perspectives, life…

L2 motivation is a relational phenomenon, shaped by teacher responsiveness (Lamb, 2017; Ushioda, 2009). Little, however, is known about the practices in which responsiveness is manifested. Drawing on research from the culturally responsive teaching paradigm (Petrone, 2013), and highlighting the role of empathy and perspective taking (Warren,…

Many schools and out-of-school organizations use social-emotional learning (SEL) programs to boost students' skills. Yet research shows that these programs can be difficult to implement and don't always meet students' needs. In response, Rebecca Bailey, Laura Stickle, Gretchen Brion-Meisels, and Stephanie Jones propose a new approach to SEL…

Guided by the social emotional learning framework, this study examined whether early adolescents' social awareness (empathic concern, perspective taking) and self-management (effortful control) would uniquely contribute to early adolescents' subsequent forms of aggression, and whether perceptions of their school climate (friction, cohesion,…

This article examines students' participation in Boalian Theater activities to role-play, rehearse, and develop strategies to use when bullied or witnessing bullying. One intention of the theater was for students to respond and to engage in perspective-taking and empathy as one of the ways of responding to bullying experiences and making sense of…

Seven schools in an economically challenged area of an urban school district in central California implemented mentored peer mediation programs under the guidance of a university-K-12 partnership project, Mediator Mentors. Individual student outcomes for social-cognitive dispositions, perceptions of school climate, conflict strategy choices, and…

This article presents an educational action research study examining how one online, classroom-based role-play simulation offers middle school students the opportunity to strengthen their agency and voice. The Jewish Court of All Time (JCAT) is a web-mediated simulation designed for middle school classrooms where students take on roles of various…