“From a Vibrant City to a Warzone”: Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony as a means to foster historical understanding through empathy Anthony M. Pellegrino a,⁎ , Alex d'Erizans b , Joseph L. Adragna c a The University of Tennessee, United States b Borough of Manhattan Community College, The City University of New York, United States c St. Scholastica Academy, United States article info Article history: Accepted 25 September 2017 Keywords: Historical thinking Primary sources Historical empathy Music in social studies abstract Scholars have long pointed to the power of music as a primary source in instruction for bringing past actors into sharper view and engender deeper connections with the past. By employing Dimitri Shostakovich's 7th Symphony, composed amidst the Nazi siege of Leningrad during the Second World War, we sought to explore, more precisely, the nature of how music, as a primary source, enhances the study of history among students. Through the formulation, execution, and assessment of a two-day lesson with students in five secondary history classes, three of which listened to the symphony and two of which did not, we found that the incorporation of the symphony resulted in students’ enhanced empathetic understanding of the past. Implications include details regarding profound opportunities for, as well as challenges to, cultivating historical empathy through the use of music as a primary source. Copyright & 2017, The International Society for the Social Studies. Published by Elsevier, Inc. Introduction Recent research in social studies education has called attention to the considerable potential of music as a primary source to enable enhanced historical thinking. In classroom research, music has been shown to engender the humanizing potential of history (DeLorenzo, 2003; White & McCormack, 2006; Wineburg, 2001). Waller and Edgington (2001) used songs from the U.S. Civil War era to demonstrate how the people viewed the conflict, noting that “what students do retain is infor- mation that is meaningful, authentic, and relevant to their lives, and music helps to emphasize that relevance” (Waller & Edgington, 2001, p. 148). Baker (2011) investigated the use of music in secondary history classrooms in North Alabama. The methods for this study included both interview and observation of six secondary United States teachers to specifically analyze their use of music as a teaching tool. Teachers reported that music deepened students’ understanding, improved student engagement, and affected positively student test scores. Baker further reported that music effectively commu- nicated the human experience, and therefore, enhanced student interest and academic achievement. In his pedagogical work on the Dust Bowl era, Lovorn (2009) observed that, through the use of primary source music, students cultivated a more profound understanding for how “ordinary folks” lived history. Whitmer (2005) articulated the essence of this work in Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jssr The Journal of Social Studies Research http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jssr.2017.09.002 0885-985X/Copyright & 2017, The International Society for the Social Studies. Published by Elsevier, Inc. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: apelleg2@utk.edu (A.M. Pellegrino). The Journal of Social Studies Research ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎ Please cite this article as: Pellegrino, A. M., et al. “From a Vibrant City to a Warzone”: Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony as a means to foster historical understanding through empathy. The Journal of Social Studies Research (2017), http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.jssr.2017.09.002i