Historical empathy involves a process of attempting to understand the thoughts, feelings, experiences, decisions, and actions of people from the past within specific historical contexts. Although historical empathy has been a rich area of study in history education for several decades, this research has largely taken place outside of Canada. In this article, I argue that greater attention should be paid to historical empathy in Canadian history education research and curriculum because it can support learning outcomes related to historical thinking and historical consciousness, citizenship, and decolonizing and anti-racist approaches to history education. Drawing from and commenting on other scholarship, I present a cognitive-affective theory of historical empathy which includes five elements: (1) evidence and contextualization, (2) informed historical imagination, (3) historical perspectives, (4) ethical judgements, and (5) caring. Through exploring each element and some pedagogical considerations for educators, I emphasize the affective dimensions of history to centre their importance for history education in Canada.

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To demonstrate how the history classroom could become an important site for addressing climate change, this article describes the piloting of three lessons. Our qualitative case study occurred in an elective environmental education course with teacher candidates who participated in the lessons and were invited to provide feedback. We describe the lessons and their development, and share results from surveys and an interview. Participants identified several educational benefits and expressed feeling better prepared to teach both history and critical thinking in general. Our findings suggest that these lessons may serve as useful examples for developing new resources to support educators in teaching climate change alongside critical and historical thinking.

This article examines the experiences of adolescents in Canada during the Second World War through a case study of Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate and Vocational School (K.C.I.) in Kitchener, Ontario. Although many prewar school activities remained a significant part of the student experience at K.C.I., the war impacted the students’ daily lives in ways specific to adolescents who attended school during this time period. Through their participation in various initiatives for the war effort, largely divided along gendered lines, students at K.C.I. contributed towards “school spirit” and developed a sense of responsibility as a future generation of Canadian citizens. This in-depth study of one Ontario high school in wartime demonstrates that age must be emphasized as a prominent factor in shaping experiences on the home front.