Abstract
This study examines the nature of cognitive empathy among prospective primary teachers, specifically in its relation to teaching of mathematics. Cognitive empathy is defined as the ability for deliberate intellectual perspective taking of another person in a teaching-learning situation. Using case studies, we identified prospective primary teachers in a methods course using a 2-by-2 matrix based on their cognitive empathy and mathematical knowledge for teaching. We found that although in general prospective teachers are empathetic in nature, most of them are able to relate to struggling students from an affective aspect, and rarely from a cognitive stance. Empathy is a trait that can be developed and deep mathematical understanding is a requisite in developing cognitive empathy.