THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMPATHY OF PRIMARY SCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN BY MEANS OF SPIRITUAL AND MORAL EDUCATION
The culture of interpersonal interaction based on humanity becomes the basic need of the modern society focused on a person capable of perception of emotional expression of other people, adequate response to the emotional state of the others. Stable social request for a person of a new type able to express sympathy, empathy towards other people orientates pedagogics and psychology to the improvement of the culture of empathy expression by the schoolchildren during the educational process. The paper covers the study of empathy of primary school-aged children and the role of means of spiritual and moral education in its development. The goal of the research is to study the psychological features of empathy of primary school-aged children and to carry out the work aimed at the improvement of the level of empathy development by means of spiritual and moral education. Within the frame of the theoretical part of the study, the notion of empathy is defined and the highest level of its development - the empathic culture of a person - is explained. In the experimental part of the study, the authors describe the features of empathy of primary school-aged children; suggest the author’s program aimed at the development of empathy at the primary school age, and analyze the results of the study of empathy of the primary school-aged children after the implementation of the psychological-educational program. In the result of the repeated diagnostics on the control experiment stage, the authors determined the significant change in the level of the empathy manifestation of primary school-aged children after the implementation of the suggested program and registered the increase of the level of empathic attitude of the primary school-aged children to their parents, peers and elderly people.