The Palgrave Companion to Humane Education

This is the first international Companion volume to humane education with contributors from many countries, including South Africa, Israel, Singapore, Croatia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and the United States. It draws together multi-disciplinary perspectives on the history of humane thought, humane education practices, and offers appraisals of what is effective. Humane education is a broad field that aims to cultivate compassion, respect, and understanding for all living beings and the environment. The desirability of cultivating empathy as an educational goal is now widely accepted, but in many countries humane education has yet to establish a foothold among all the competing claims on the modern curriculum. However, it remains a key tool that can be used to lessen violence and insensitivity to humans and animals alike. The purpose of this Companion volume is to inspire and facilitate the teaching of humane education, which the authors believe should be on the agenda of every school and college in the world. This Companion volume is a project of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, which pioneers ethical perspectives on animals through academic research, teaching, and publication.