Empathy and Compassion in Geography Education

This chapter focuses on an important but relatively underdeveloped area within the geography education literature—teaching for empathy and compassion. In doing so, we draw on and extend understandings of the role of geography education in nurturing empathetic and compassionate (global) citizens. We begin with a brief overview of the literature related to emotional-affective geographies within the geography education literature and explore connections among the concepts of perspective, empathy, and compassion. We provide three curriculum guidelines for engaging with empathy and compassion in curriculum-making for geography educators and provide examples of how designing for empathy and compassion in geography lessons can help students acquire more insightful spatial understandings of the complex, inter-related, and diverse world they live in. Finally, we close this chapter with recommendations for incorporating empathy and compassion in geography education research, teacher education, and professional practice.