Stoddard, Jeremy D. “Attempting to Understand the Lives of Others: Film as a Tool for Developing Historical Empathy.” (2007)

Jeremy Stoddard investigates how film was incorporated into a high school history class during a unit on fascism and The Holocaust with the goal of developing students’ historical empathy. He aims to understand how various pedagogical strategies with film supported (or hindered) the development of empathy in students both in terms of the academic skill of cognitive empathy and also in terms of Barton and Levstik’s (2004) notion of the “common good” where empathy scaffolds the creation of citizens who work for tolerance and social justice. In this case study the teacher showed a combination of feature and documentary film including, The Wave (1981), The Holocaust: In Memory of Millions (1994), Swing Kids (1993), and America and The Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference (1994).