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Empathy in the Classroom: Can Music Bring Us More in Tune with One Another?
Abstract
Empathy has captured attention in diverse fields, such as the arts, education, medicine, and entertainment. This article provides insight into the development of empathy through music-making experiences. Recent research has suggested that music educators can play a valuable role in promoting empathy in their students through specific music learning processes. In addition, the personal empathic connections that are made in the creation and performance of music can influence teaching strategies. This article offers definitions of empathy, reviews recent studies of empathy and music-making, and provides applications for teachers.
... Educational research contributes to this discussion, supporting that children have their own empathic dispositions, which can actually be measured (Clarke et al., 2015); however, the social and full-of-interactions environment of family and school are strongly able to mediate the cognitive and affective processes of empathy (Feshbach & Feshbach, 2011). This notion is in line with the present study's rationale (that empathy is both a measurable trait and an educable skill), as well as with research, which proposes that interpersonal procedures such as music-making can increase social contagion and bonding among children and finally promote empathy (Laird, 2015;Rabinowitch et al. 2013). ...
... The fact that children with higher empathy can better be socially synchronised with their peers can help music educators realise the importance of this personality trait. It has been supported that teachers play a significant role in their students' empathy enhancement (Laird, 2015). Thus, they should first invest in creating an effective school and classroom environment where children can learn how to adopt the others' perspectives and share their emotional experiences before starting playing music together and forming orchestras and music ensembles. ...
... Furthermore, attention could be paid to music teacher's role during a children's interaction. Laird (2015) states that teachers not only contribute to children's education but have also a valuable impact on empathy's training. Thus, future studies could collect data about music teachers' beliefs concerning empathy and its role in children's relationships and interactions and try to promote new practices that enable empathy to manifest and enhance musical coordination. ...
During their musical interaction, children are required to imitate each other, adapt their musical performance and finally attain social rhythmic entrainment between each other, the temporal interpersonal coordination of their music-making. Recently, this demanding skill has been associated with empathy as children's musical synchronisation elicits individuals' emotional states, promotes affiliation (Kirschner & Tomasello, 2009) and enhances children's empathy (Rabinowitch et al., 2013). However, less attention has been paid to empathy's impact on rhythmic entrainment and the contribution of the content of musical interaction on this possible influence. The present exploratory study aimed to investigate how different levels of trait empathy influence temporal coordination and the affective connection between children during their musical interaction. Subsequently, this study aimed to explore how two different approaches to musical activities (cognitive vs. motor-emotional) contribute to empathy's impact and affect rhythmic entrainment. Descriptive analyses showed that higher empathy facilitates both temporal and affective rhythmic entrainment of children and activities that involve body movements and mutual interaction contribute to this interpersonal coordination. The small sample size precludes definitive conclusions; however, this study contributes to a theoretical framework that suggests a continuous bidirectional relationship between empathy and social rhythmic entrainment. Limitations, implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
... Music and music education, then, might participate when the project is not understanding. In music education, social justice conversations often focus on understanding the Other and empathy (Hendricks 2018;Hendricks et al. 2021;Laird 2015;Silverman 2015;Zhang 2017). Music often emerges from oppression; as such, it holds potential for anti-oppression work (Hess 2015(Hess , 2019. ...
... Music education scholars increasingly point to music education's potential to foster empathy (Winter 2013;Zhang 2017;Silverman 2015;Laird 2015;Hendricks 2018;Hendricks et al. 2021;Cho and Han 2022). Hendricks (2018) distinguishes between cognitive empathy and affective empathy: "cognitive empathy, or the ability to consider in our minds what someone else might be experiencing, and affective empathy, or the ability to actually Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. ...
In this paper, I consider pedagogical moments when the project of pedagogy is to not understand, as understanding would entail complicity with dehumanization. I explore the slipperiness of understanding and parse when understanding is helpful and when it reinscribes structures of dehumanization. I examine when it might be important in music education pedagogy to foster a refusal to understand, specifically in cases of extreme suffering that might occur in projects of dehumanization, atrocity, and genocide. Then, I explore the ethics embedded in different forms of understanding and consider why not understanding is sometimes the ethical path and tease out the complexities of such refusals to understand. Subsequently, I focus on what music might contribute to this pedagogical approach. I then explore and critique empathy and the project of empathy in education. Ultimately, I consider the role of discomfort in music education to facilitate these kinds of refusals. I center the work of several scholars in this discussion: Sherene Razack (Dark threats and White knights: The Somalia Affair, peacekeeping, and the new imperialism University of Toronto Press Toronto, ON, 2004, Rev Educ Pedag Cult Stud 29 (4): 375-394, 2007), Megan Boler (Feeling power: Emotions and education. Routledge, New York, NY, 1999), Jennifer Geddes (Hypatia 18 (1):104-115, 2003), Charlotte Delbo (Auschwitz and after. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1995/2014), Hannah Arendt (Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. Penguin Books, New York, NY, 1963/2006), Marie Hållander (Ethics Educ 10(2): 175-185, 2015, Stud Philos Educ 38: 467–480, 2019), Barbara Applebaum (Being White, being good: White complicity, White moral responsibility, and social justice pedagogy. Lexington Books, New York 2010, White educators negotiating complicity: Roadblocks paved with good intentions. Lexington Books, New York, NY, 2022), and Liora Gubkin (Teach Theol Relig 18(2): 103–120, 2015).
... For a start, cognitive empathy is attached to knowing what others feel, and what they might be thinking, which is similar to Batson's (2009) illustration. Laird (2015) referred it to perspectivation. Next, emotional empathy is enacted to feel something along with others in a way that appears as something contagious. ...
... Factors influencing empathy include perceived similarity to other people, nurturance, culture, and neurological functions (Laird, 2015). The perceived similarity is set with the idea that people feel a person's situations to the extent that they perceive these to be similar to themselves. ...
Empathy, as an essential personality trait of human beings, has been studied rigorously in the field of nursing and medical sciences. Nowadays, universities are also endeavoring to develop empathy with particular courses or tailored content among the students. The English language classroom acts as a dynamic platform to impart education for empathy. Yet there is a paucity of research related to the outcomes of such initiatives. The current study revolved around an English language course that is primarily designed to improve students' proficiency in English required for them to be empowered with the compatibility of tertiary education. The secondary focus of the course concerned the cultivation of empathy that is inevitable not only for the academic journey but also for social wellbeing. The present study was designed to investigate the contents, based on theoretical grounds, of the English language classroom and to trace the outcomes of such an empathy-teaching. A phenomenological approach was adopted to conduct the study, in which document analysis and semi-structured interviews with 10 participants shaped the instrumentation of data collection. The current study adopted thematic analysis to analyze the semi-structured interview data. The findings projected that the contents harnessed to cultivate empathy corresponded to the theoretical aspects of empathy development. The semi-structured interview data was a testimony of the nature of empathy practice inculcated among undergraduate students.
... For a start, cognitive empathy is attached to knowing what others feel, and what they might be thinking, which is similar to Batson's (2009) illustration. Laird (2015) referred it to perspectivation. Next, emotional empathy is enacted to feel something along with others in a way that appears as something contagious. ...
... Factors influencing empathy include perceived similarity to other people, nurturance, culture, and neurological functions (Laird, 2015). The perceived similarity is set with the idea that people feel a person's situations to the extent that they perceive these to be similar to themselves. ...
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04021.].
... Notably, the study by Rabinowitch et al. (2013) showed that children engaged in musical group interactions developed higher emotional empathy 14 . These results are also supported by other investigations and claims suggesting that musical experience, entailing both sensory and motor musical activities, can promote empathy 91,101,102 . ...
... Our results indicate that more empathic individuals are predisposed to be more accurate at performing music with others, and that this benefit might originate from superior skill at temporal prediction. Taken together with previous findings 14,91,100,102,103 , this sheds light upon a bidirectional nature of the relationship between musical interaction and empathy. Such directionality suggests that the capacities to (1) coordinate with others and (2) empathize with others rely on a common mechanism whose functioning is modulated by experience in musical interaction as well as personality traits. ...
Coordinated behavior promotes collaboration among humans. To shed light upon this relationship, we investigated whether and how interpersonal coordination is promoted by empathic perspective taking (EPT). In a joint music-making task, pairs of participants rotated electronic music-boxes, producing two streams of musical sounds that were meant to be played synchronously. Participants – who were not musically trained – were assigned to high and low EPT groups based on pre-experimental assessments using a standardized personality questionnaire. Results indicated that high EPT pairs were generally more accurate in synchronizing their actions. When instructed to lead the interaction, high and low EPT leaders were equally cooperative with followers, making their performance tempo more regular, presumably in order to increase their predictability and help followers to synchronize. Crucially, however, high EPT followers were better able to use this information to predict leaders’ behavior and thus improve interpersonal synchronization. Thus, empathic perspective taking promotes interpersonal coordination by enhancing accuracy in predicting others’ behavior while leaving the aptitude for cooperation unaltered. We argue that such predictive capacity relies on a sensorimotor mechanism responsible for simulating others’ actions in an anticipatory manner, leading to behavioral advantages that may impact social cognition on a broad scale.
... It is emphasized that dealing with music also had positive impacts on empathic tendencies of children necessary for healthy communication along with keeping a pet at home (Cho, 2021;Laird, 2015;Rabinowitch et al., 2013). With music, which is the most powerful means of expression of the world of human's unseen emotions, individuals can express their feelings in different ways. ...
The present study was carried out to investigate the empathetic tendencies of children with regard to keeping a pet at home and playing a musical instrument. The study was carried out with a total of 139 children, 72 girls and 67 boys, attending the third-fourth and fifth grades of a foundation primary school located in the city center of Denizli in Turkey. In the study, a Personal Information Form as developed by the researchers was used with an aim to obtain information about the child and family, and the "KA-Sİ Empathetic Tendency Scale for Children and Adolescents - Children's Form" was used in order to determine the empathetic tendency of children. Parametric (t-Test, One-Way Variance Analysis (ANOVA) and non-parametric (Mann-Whitney, Kuruskal Wallis) tests were applied based on whether the data demonstrated a normal distribution or not, in order to determine if the empathetic tendencies of children differ by the variables of keeping a pet and playing a musical instrument at home. As a result of the research; it was found that the variables of keeping a pet at home and playing a musical instrument were associated with a significant difference in the mean scores of children's empathetic tendency (p <0.05).Children can be given responsibilities about keeping pets, which makes important contribution to empathetic skill; children can be oriented to musical activities in line with their interests, and studies can be conducted with an aim to raise awareness of parents and the close environment.
... Ancak başkalarıyla müzikal etkileşim empati üzerinde bir etkiye yol açar. Bu durum grup birliği ve kişilerarası uyum gerektirir (Laird, 2015). Uzun süreli müzikal grup etkileşiminde bulunan çocukların duygusal empati puanları bu faaliyetlere katılmayanlara göre daha yüksektir (Rabinowitch, Cross ve Burnard, 2012). ...
... drumming circles (through imitation, entrainment, and collaborative problemsolving) (Laird, 2015). ...
Providing equitable music education remains a challenge in South Africa. The Naledi Community Music Program was started in 1994 to address unequal access to high-quality music education for learners from historically disadvantaged communities in the working-class suburbs and townships surrounding Akasiaspruit. The Naledi Community Music Program is a service-learning partnership between staff and student-teachers at the Akasiaspruit University School of Music and various community partners. This arts-informed instrumental case study explores the lived experiences of student-teachers in the Naledi Community Music Program through the lens of (un)caring.
Care and (un)caring are complex concepts which are explored through the literature on an ethic of care. In my analysis of this literature, I created a theoretical framework highlighting care as an embodied practice, a social practice, and authentic care as a transformative practice. I employed a pluralistic arts-informed research design to understand student-teachers' lived experiences in the Naledi Community Music Program.
Through a process of dramaturgical coding, I created a research-based musical play. In this play, the individual experiences shed light on a myriad of caring and uncaring practices taking place within the context of the Naledi Community Music Program. By employing values coding I explored the beliefs, attitudes, and values at play in the Naledi Community Music Program. The findings of the values coding are shared through a process I refer to as visual values maps. This process employs principles of cartography and poured acrylics to aid me, as researcher, to show my interpretation of the values coding.
The individual values maps highlighted values continua at play within the Naledi Community Music Program. I identified three continua as important to understanding student-teachers' lived experiences through the lens of (un)caring: 1) hospitality versus exclusion, 2) egalitarianism versus hierarchy, and 3) decency versus humiliation.
The findings of this study shed light on the complexities of care within community music and music education contexts. By giving voice to the individual lived experiences of student-teachers and by paying attention to the larger structures at play, I explored care and uncaring, not as dualisms, but as a complex, multifaceted social practice.
... COO, as a multidisciplinary arts programme, achieves effective communication and multiple benefits both for teachers seeking innovative programmes and for highly motivated students. According to Laird (2015), music is capable of creating emotionally stimulating environments in which relationships and communication emerge effortlessly between listeners, performers and composers. Some aspects of music education tend to promote a culture of empathy (Rabinowitch, Cross & Burnard, 2013;Greenberg, Rentfrow & Baron-Cohen, 2015). ...
The study examines the impacts of a project-based learning (PBL) methodology on the development of emotional skills involved in the learner’s individual and social well-being. This paper summarises the preliminary results of the case study in which the project ‘Opera as a Vehicle for Learning’ (LOVA) was implemented with a key stage 2 group in Mexico City. This project fostered the development of the students’ intra- and interpersonal skills, group decision-making, critical reasoning, active listening, oral and written expression and emotion sharing. Findings suggest that LOVA has proved to be a powerful methodological resource for the development of collaborative learning, emotional education and social interaction in groups. Findings also suggest that music learning can be used as a highly effective device for the development of social skills.
... When we share in a mutual understanding of one another, both our empathy toward one another and the music-making process may be enhanced." 8 The teacher should learn who students are by listening and observing them before, during, and after class. In my classes, Bell Work and Exit Questions are brief written activities designed to review musical concepts while giving an opportunity for students to ask questions, give feedback, and self-assess their classroom experience. ...
Teaching middle school choral music in a culturally diverse middle school in Hawaii resulted in new knowledge about welcoming the challenges posed by diversity to the benefit of both students and educator. Concise strategies described in this article are applicable to any music program.
... From a music education perspective, Laird (2015) argues that empathy can be developed through music-making experiences, including through singing together. It is possible, then, that singing along with music in another language might bring the learner to feel closer to others from that culture. ...
This chapter provides an overview of recent research relating to the ways in which children and young people find, listen to, and learn songs from another country or culture and how this can lead to informal language learning. One argument is that music can form a bridge between “formal and informal” language learning; for example, students may encounter a song they enjoy in class and then access it via the Internet to hear it again, watch the music video or even learn the lyrics by heart. Songs and musical resources developed by teachers to use in the classroom (including folk or traditional music and children’s songs, chants and rhymes) may contain “simplified” or “targeted” language, whereas the music found by young people is more likely to contain the “authentic” language found in popular music and rap songs. The linguistic benefits of using foreign language songs and music may include gains in listening comprehension, speaking and pronunciation; vocabulary knowledge, including informal, idiomatic and slang expressions; improved literacy and more automatised use of grammar; and increased intercultural understanding. Suggestions for choosing songs to help learn foreign language material are also provided.
... Kirschner & Tomasello (2010), for example, observed that four-year-olds behaved more empathetically and cooperatively towards their peers after they engaged in a musical activity that entailed synchronous movement and singing. Rabinowitch et al. (2012) noted a potential for group musical activities to enhance social-emotional capacities in primary school children (compare to Laird, 2015). ...
Previous research has identified families as hubs for musical development, but little is known about the reciprocal effects on familial dynamics. Here, we address the long-term associations between familial music and parental perceptions of their children’s personality. To these ends, we analysed a subset of data from the German Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics study, a longitudinal cohort study. A total of 839 data sets from parents with their children, covering four waves over a period of six years, served as our database. The frequency of engagement in Singing and Playing Musical Instruments, Reading Books or Storytelling and Shopping represented independent measures, whereas the ratings of Prosocial Behaviour, Intimacy, Admiration, and Conflicts served as dependent measures in the panel regression models. A substantial decline in everyday activities was noted as children grew older, with the exception of Shopping. Parental education, but not family net income, was found to be correlated
with familial music activities. These activities were correlated with three facets of children’s personality, Prosocial Behaviour, Intimacy, and Admiration, based on both fixed- and random-effects models. The correlations, however, were partially weakened when Reading or Storytelling and Shopping were entered into the models. Our findings suggest that familial music activities may exert long-term and causal influences on familial dynamics, as reflected through important facets of children’s personality.
... One essential capacity that must be cultivated in order to foster socially just citizens is empathy, which is an increasingly difficult characteristic to inculcate because of the narcissism engendered by the technological age. While research has shown that active music-making may have a profound effect in fostering empathy in students, 16 contextualized music studies can also contribute to this development. These units help foster empathy because they expose children to circumstances and lifestyles that differ from their own in compelling ways. ...
Music educators are part of a team charged with nurturing the development of the whole child. This includes instilling in students cognitive keys to essential life values that will be drawn on through adulthood. To help music educators attain this goal, this article encourages the inclusion of contexualized music units—immersive studies of prominent composers or musical genres that are historically or culturally relevant. This article describes the process of designing contextualized music instruction and delineates how this instruction contributes to a sound elementary music program that allows teachers to educate musically and teach music as-and-for social justice through the use of critical pedagogy and interdisciplinary learning. Sample units and resource lists are included.
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity and Emotions provides a state-of-the-art review of research on the role of emotions in creativity. This volume presents the insights and perspectives of sixty creativity scholars from thirteen countries who span multiple disciplines, including developmental, social, and personality psychology; industrial and organizational psychology; neuroscience; education; art therapy, and sociology. It discusses affective processes – emotion states, traits, and emotion abilities – in relation to the creative process, person, and product, as well as two major contexts for expression of creativity: school, and work. It is a go-to source for scholars who need to enhance their understanding of a specific topic relating to creativity and emotion, and it provides students and researchers with a comprehensive introduction to creativity and emotion broadly.
Using Kohut’s selfobject perspective as a foundation, this qualitative study explored the empathy with music and analyzed the empirical meanings in relation to ‘Mirroring selfobject need’, ‘Idealized selfobject need’, and ‘Twinship selfobject need’. The participants included 13 music therapy graduate students who took part in individual interviews about their musical experiences.
The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed via content analysis. As a result, seven categories with 16 meaningful concepts emerged under three dimensions: Gratification of selfobject need for mirroring, gratification of selfobject need for idealization, and gratification of selfobject need for twinship. Participants described experiencing unconditional understanding and acceptance from music, feeling stronger and safer in music, and being identified with and connected to music. These findings suggest that participants continuously gratify their selfobject needs by expanding the self and empathizing themselves through music. This study in significant in that it is the first qualitative study to analyze participants’ musical experiences from Kohut’s selfobject perspective.
Music Education for Social Change: Constructing an Activist Music Education develops an activist music education rooted in principles of social justice and anti-oppression. Based on the interviews of 20 activist-musicians across the United States and Canada, the book explores the common themes, perceptions, and philosophies among them, positioning these activist-musicians as catalysts for change in music education while raising the question: amidst racism and violence targeted at people who embody difference, how can music education contribute to changing the social climate?
Music has long played a role in activism and resistance. By drawing upon this rich tradition, educators can position activist music education as part of a long-term response to events, as a crucial initiative to respond to ongoing oppression, and as an opportunity for youth to develop collective, expressive, and critical thinking skills. This emergent activist music education—like activism pushing toward social change—focuses on bringing people together, expressing experiences, and identifying (and challenging) oppressions. Grounded in practice with examples integrated throughout the text, Music Education for Social Change is an imperative and urgent consideration of what may be possible through music and music education.
(https://www.routledge.com/Music-Education-for-Social-Change-Constructing-an-Activist-Music-Education/Hess/p/book/9781138322530)
Recent studies in a variety of disciplines have linked the reading of fiction specifically with measurable increases in empathy using both self-reported instruments and neurological examinations. Through a review of the recent studies and experimental evidence, the author contends that empathy can be trained using fiction through specific titles chosen and/or guided discussions. The act of transportation into the story and identification with the characters can lead to substantive changes in perception and world view. Therefore, fiction collections in academic libraries provide a needed resource and should be considered as such.
Empathy, a core element of helping skills training, is vital to the development of the therapeutic alliance and positive counseling outcomes. This article presents a classroom exercise developed to increase students’ empathy. The exercise features imaginative dialogue by members of a counselor education beginning skills class with art works in an exhibit curated by a museum educator. Presented are the details of the teaching exercise, student and faculty reflections on the exercise, and suggestions for further research.
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