The impact of an intergenerational program on empathic concern of elementary school students in a local community

Focusing on the familiarity with senior volunteers

Abstract

This study examines the effects of an intergenerational program, REPRINTS, on the familiarity with senior volunteers and emotional empathy of elementary school students. The program consisted of senior volunteers who read picture books to the 6th grade elementary school students. The program was held as a Koryu Jugyo (exchange class) in a Japanese elementary school, six times over a period of one month. In this program, 56 students were assigned to an intervention group, and 28 students were assigned to a waiting list control group. Both groups answered questionnaires two times (at baseline and 30 days after). A two-way repeated-measures ANOVA shows a time × group significant interaction effects. Analyses of the simple main effects showed that familiarity with senior volunteers significantly increased for members of the intervention group. Structural Equation Modeling revealed that participation in the program had positive effects on the students empathic concern, including familiarity with senior volunteers. These results suggest that to understand the development of children's empathy, it is important to consider familiarity with senior volunteers through intergenerational programs.