Exploring Perspectives

People across Alberta hold varying views on animals based on their culture, religion, age, life experiences and values. When students explore these diverse relationships, they begin to see how deeply animals are woven into our identities, communities and daily lives. Understanding this range of perspectives helps students appreciate that each persons’ unique connection to animals is shaped by more than personal preference — it reflects history, tradition and lived experience.

Exploring different viewpoints helps foster empathy, critical thinking and respectful dialogue. As students compare and contrast perspectives, they learn to recognize nuance, challenge assumptions and approach differences with open minds. This reflection also strengthens the interpersonal skills needed to build kind and caring communities.

Empathy itself is not a single skill, but a set of related capacities that develop over time. Affective or emotional empathy (the ability to emotionally resonate with another’s feelings) is seen early in development and across many social species. While this form of empathy can prompt concern or care, it is often instinctive and limited to those we find familiar, relatable or similar to ourselves. On its own, emotional empathy does not necessarily involve understanding context, beliefs or motivations.

Cognitive empathy or perspective taking has a separate neural pathway and involves understanding another’s internal states.¹ Cognitive empathy allows students to anticipate how others — including animals — might think, feel or respond in different situations. This skill supports thoughtful decision-making and helps students move beyond snap judgments toward deeper understanding. Cognitive empathy is a skill that is learned as an individual develops their theory of mind and helps with predicting the emotions of others, including animals.²

Developing cognitive empathy also helps address a common challenge: people tend to empathize most easily with those who are closest to them and may struggle to extend understanding to unfamiliar perspectives. Exploring the diverse ways Albertans relate to animals provides meaningful, local examples that challenge this tendency. Students are encouraged to consider how factors such as geography, livelihood, culture and tradition influence relationships with animals, and to recognize that differing perspectives can coexist without one being “right” or “wrong.”

Reference

1. Berliner, R., & Masterson, T. L. (2015). Review of research: Promoting development in the early childhood and elementary classroom. Childhood Education, 91(1), 57–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2015.1001675
2. Young, A., Khalil, K. A., & Wharton, J. (2018). Empathy for animals: A review of the existing literature. Curator: The Museum Journal, 61(2), 327–343. https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12257