Brazilian children’s theories of empathy: Exploring character through art

ABSTRACT

Though academic research and public policy have directed much attention to how education can promote empathy in children, fewer studies have examined exactly how children define empathy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Brazilian NGO Usina da Imaginação engaged in a long series of arts and storytelling workshops with children across the socioeconomic spectrum and then used research methods from ethnography, literary studies, and documentary film to hear children’s ideas and theories about alterity, solidarity, and empathy. These interviews showed that for this group of children, art is a transpersonal feeling: one girl described music as a synapse capable not only of connecting neurons within a brain, but of connecting one brain with another. A close genealogy of these children’s theories shows how they emerge from both indigenous and afro-Brazilian practices of esthetic sociality, valuing being-together as a principal element of human flourishing and valuing collective art as a privileged part of that process.

KEYWORDS:

• Empathy
• Brazil
• children
• character education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. The 2022 Brazilian census divides the country into six classes, where the richest category (A) earns about 23 times more than the poorest (class DE) (US$4000/month vs. US$ 175/month). About 3% of Brazilians fall into the A class, and close to 30% in the DE class, with the middle classes at about 22% and the lower middle classes at 47%. The sample of this study had a slight over-representation of class DE and class A. See (Gente, 2022).

2. Though its GINI coefficient (measure of inequality) has dropped from .63 at the end of the military dictatorship to .49 today, Brazil continues to be one of the most unequal countries in the world (Our World in Data, n.d.). Upper middle class (class B) formally refers to families with a monthly income of US$1750–2300. More concretely, it generally means a comfortable home in a closed condominium or large apartment, private school for children, two cars in the family, and steady, often managerial employment. The children in the other group of phase 1 were largely working class, with family incomes of US$250–400 a month; better off than children in the famous Brazilian favelas, but from families that often struggle to put food on the table and whose housing is far from secure.

3. To see, hear, and watch the works of art, you can visit https://inspira.usinadaimaginacao.org/galeria/

4. Isa: Arte em Tempos de Pandemia: https://vimeo.com/468655444, minutes 2:11–3:06

5. Inspiração: Arte em Tempos de Pandemica. A Youtube Live presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z96IAVPuiIs&t=6852s

6. Aloís: Arte em Tempos de Pandemia. https://vimeo.com/607358532?share=copy

7. Aloís Vicentini Bogo, ‘Abro os Olhos’. https://spotify.link/g47CJyKR3Cb

8. Eliz: Arte em Tempos de Pandemia. https://vimeo.com/610742882?share=copy

9. Liam Ramsey, Music video for Novo Futuro”: https://vimeo.com/521869663?share=copy. Or https://spotify.link/dRENnLtS3Cb

10. Wittenstein (1968).

11. O Dabucuri. Documentary for television directed by Kurt Shaw and Rita de Cácia Oenning da Silva and produced by Usina da Imaginação. In post-production.

12. Arte em Tempos de Pandemia: Lorena. https://vimeo.com/475273738?share=copy

13. Arte em tempos de Pandemia: Oberá. https://vimeo.com/452329667

14. Helena. Mar de Liberdade. https://vimeo.com/533990619?share=copy and https://spotify.link/cdU3X2fT3Cb

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation [TWCF-2018-20364].

Notes on contributors

Kurt Shaw

Kurt Shaw studied philosophy at Williams and classics at Harvard, but his real education came from two years in Central American refugee camps and Colombian slums, where he found poor and marginalized people more compelling thinkers than many academic philosophers. He developed the world’s largest network of grass-roots organizations serving street kids, directed the first feature film made entirely by ex-child soldiers, produced an indigenous telenovela in Bolivia, and directed the first fictional film in the Amazonian Tukano language. His feature film The Princess in the Alleyway, won world’s best film of 2017 by the Subversive Cinema Society.

Rita de Cácia Oenning da Silva

Rita de Cácia Oenning da Silva, PhD and post doctorate in anthropology (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina and UCLA), is a filmmaker and researcher in children narratives and performances. Rita was born to a large farming family in southern Brazil, where she learned to appreciate the mysteries of nature, something that continues to animate her work and research with children. After years teaching in the university, she later moved into non-profits, founding and co-directing Usina da Imaginação. She has directed many films, including The Princess in the Alleyway (2017), The other side of the Other (2019), Wuitina Numiá (2021), and the upcoming Aiurê (2024).