Conflicts and Contradictions: Conceptions of Empathy and Good-Intentioned White Female Teachers

Urban Education2015, Vol. 50(5) 572 –600

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Article

Conflicts and Contradictions: Conceptions of Empathy and the Work of Good-Intentioned Early Career White Female Teachers

Chezare A. Warren1

AbstractEmpathy is theorized to help teachers build strategic student–teacher relationships, develop productive parent partnerships, and acquire professionally informed social and cultural perspectives of students and families. However, this literature offers little empirical evidence regarding how practicing teachers conceive of and enact empathy in their work with students of color in urban schools. This article examines early career White female teachers’ conceptions or beliefs about empathy, and how those conceptions inform their professional decision making. Findings suggest several conflicts and contradictions exist between teacher participants’ conceptions of empathy’s relevance to her teaching, and what they do in their actual teaching practice.

Keywordsempathy, White teacher, pedagogy, urban, culturally responsive teaching

1Michigan State University, USA

Corresponding Author:Chezare A. Warren, Division of Applied Psychology and Human Development, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19144, USA. Email: [email protected]

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Introduction

Many urban schools in the United States are populated by a growing majority of students who are non-White and working class or poor (Fry, 2007; Snyder, 2009; Yasin, 2000) while their teachers continue to be largely White, middle- to upper class, and female (Feistritzer, 2011; Hodgkinson, 2002; Landsman & Lewis, 2006). Women make up about 74% of all educators (school leaders included), and White females represent over 80% of professionals in the field of education, primarily as teachers (U.S. Bureau of Labor, 2008a, 2008b). Arguably, many White female teachers will not have had prolonged, ongoing interaction with people of color prior to teaching in predominately Black or Latino schools. As a result, despite good intentions, they are likely to have developed misinformed, deficit social and cultural perspectives of racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students. Empathy is theorized to mini-mize the deleterious outcomes of interactions between White teachers and young people who may be very different from them (McAllister & Irvine, 2002; Warren, 2013a, 2013b).

Given the strong theoretical foundation of culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP; Gay, 2010, 2013; Howard, 2001) and seminal literature underscoring its contemporary relevance to urban schooling (Howard, 2010; Prier, 2012), this study extends CRP’s insistence that teachers acquire professionally informed, asset-based perspectives of diverse students and the cultural bril-liance they bring to school. The current research project inquires about four early career White female teachers’ conceptions of empathy relevant to their work with culturally and racially diverse students. The conflicts and contra-dictions between these teachers’ conceptions of empathy and its application in their teaching practice are the focus of this article. Teacher conception is defined here as the belief or attitude a teacher possesses relative to his or her understanding of a particular concept or set of concepts.

Using Empathy to Close Perception Gaps

Eileen O’Brien (2003) argues,

For Whites, developing empathy means having to step across that perception gap, grasping the extent to which racism still exists, and validating the experiences of people of color . . . Hence White antiracists face the challenge of establishing empathy, rather than false empathy . . . (p. 254)

Perception gap refers to the disparity in perception between those on the receiving end of one’s help and the helper. O’Brien’s work regarding this gap



574 Urban Education 50(5)

places emphases on unpacking the intention, agenda, and egotistical motiva-tion of White antiracists by getting to the root cause(s) of the conflict may they experience with the people of color they desire to help or serve. Applying empathy requires a degree of selflessness that centralizes the needs, desires, and opinions of the receiver in the empathetic response regardless of the effort the response requires (Batson, 1991; Davis, 1994; Stueber, 2006). The response is largely determined by one’s perception of the condition, and from this perception the helper makes decisions about what action he or she takes to respond appropriately. O’Brien argues that one’s perception is largely shaped by his or her race, experience, and understanding of racism. Similarly, there are likely fundamental differences in the social and cultural perspec-tives of White teachers and the students and families of color they serve. The misalignment of perspective leads to gaps in perception that could have adverse consequences on teachers’ decision making regarding how to build relationships with students, discipline alternatives, curriculum development, and negotiating the range of other professional tasks for which the teacher is responsible.

Early research by Irvine (1985, 1991) and others (Baron, Tom, & Cooper, 1985; Demeis & Turner, 1978) maintain that White teachers have an espe-cially poor perception of Black students when compared to their beliefs and expectations for the academic performance of White students. Irvine found that these “initial impressions” about ability and students’ “deviant behavior” influenced the way these teachers negotiated interactions with their Black students. More recent work confirms White teachers tend to view and evalu-ate Black students’ behavior and competence more negatively than White students (Downey & Pribesh, 2004; Ford & Sassi, 2014; McGrady & Reynolds, 2013). Even as early as the first two years of formal schooling, racially and ethnically minoritized1 students are being negatively evaluated (Sbarra & Pianta, 2001). Acknowledging that there may be gaps in perception and having a mechanism for overcoming those gaps is paramount for improv-ing student outcomes for Black and Latino youth.

Tools, or interventions as Ferguson (2003) suggests, are needed to mini-mize White teachers’ deficit perceptions of youth, and easily minimize adverse outcomes associated with perception gaps. These tools should improve the teacher’s capacity to understand students from culturally accu-rate and appropriate points of view. Empathy has been theorized to accom-plish such a goal. The current study seeks to explore empathy’s relevance as a professional tool for closing perception gaps by first unpacking practicing teachers’ own conception of empathy. The way a teacher thinks about and articulates empathy’s utility in his or her practice likely informs the nature of empathy’s application in the teacher’s professional practice. Literature in the



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following section suggests that misperceptions of students and families are likely to happen in cross racial stakeholder–teacher interactions, but that empathy may be useful to minimize the negative outcomes. The author seeks to examine how teachers’ conceptions of empathy inform the approaches they take to carry out various professional tasks.

Literature Review

Cursory mentions of empathy’s validity and necessity as an instrument of culturally responsive teaching is interspersed throughout the urban education and multicultural education literature. The goal of this section is to highlight how, where, and why mentions of empathy have been used in this literature. Also, urban schools are most populated with students of color and White teachers. This section briefly explores the implications of race, racism, and whiteness on White (female) teachers’ interactions with youth. The literature review begins with a brief examination of empathy’s role for improving stu-dent outcomes of racially diverse students and extant literature featuring teacher conceptions of empathy (TCE).

Empathy, Pedagogy, and Urban Teaching

Scholars of multicultural and urban education emphasize empathy’s utility for helping all teachers, but especially White teachers; raise academic expec-tations; build substantive relationships with students; sustain productive part-nerships with parents; and demonstrate culturally congruent forms of care (Dance, 2002; Dolby, 2012; Howard, 2006, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 2006; Milner, 2010). Carter (2009) contends that school equity in the Obama era falls short if practitioners fail to attend to the empathy gap (p. 294). She insists empathy is most necessary for today’s urban teachers if they are seri-ous about providing high-quality, equitable schooling experiences for stu-dents of color. Moreover, in his Phi Delta Kappan article a decade earlier, Gordon (1999) declared that empathy is 1 of 11 dispositions the most talented teachers of urban students must acquire and utilize in their practice. This lit-erature helps establish the claim that empathy is a highly useful disposition of urban teachers. Empathy allows teachers the flexibility to see their instruc-tion and student interactions through students’ eyes.

Furthermore, researchers in education subfields such as science education and instructional technology believe empathy improves the quality of learn-ing experiences arranged for diverse students (Arghode, Yalvac, & Liew, 2013; Cooper, 2004, 2010; Huang, Li, Sun, Chen, & Davis, 2012; Tettegah, 2005; Tettegah & Anderson, 2007). Older studies demonstrate that a teacher’s




application of empathy bolsters positive student behaviors, including increased student achievement and more propitious student–teacher relation-ships (Aspy, 1972, 1975a, 1975b; Black & Phillips, 1982; Coffman, 1981; Lawrence-Lightfoot, 1985; Morgan, 1984; Stevens, 1967). Ladson-Billings (2006) argues that empathy improves a teacher’s capacity to understand the needs of diverse students, and that this knowledge should enable teachers with the information they need to raise expectations for student performance. Howard (2006, 2010) and Milner (2010) argue that empathetic teachers cre-ate more nurturing classroom environments where all students, regardless of race, culture, or ethnic identity, feel cared for and understood. Empathy is lauded for its potential to minimize the conflict and relational dissonance associated with student–teacher race difference. This is done when teachers resign generic constructions of student reality from hegemonic, privileged frames of reference. The application of empathy supports a teacher’s ability to acquire or adopt students’ points of view, which in turn should help to minimize deficit perspectives of youth.

Correspondingly, McAllister and Irvine (2002) led 34 practicing teachers through a professional development that included a community immersion experience. A majority of the teachers had little to no cross-cultural experi-ences prior to participating in the professional development meant to increase their cultural responsiveness. Teachers participated in a range of activities meant to jar their thinking and increase their awareness about culture and race difference. Following the experience, teachers make the explicit recommenda-tion of empathy for bolstering their teaching effectiveness with diverse stu-dents. However, the relationship between teachers’ conceptions of empathy and their successful application of empathy in practice was undocumented.

Connecting conceptions of empathy to teaching practice. Dolby (2012) found that the predominately White preservice teachers in her multicultural education courses believed empathy is important for teaching students of color. She found that these teacher candidates’ conceptions of empathy’s relevance and applica-tion in social interactions with close family and friends differ widely from its application with complete strangers, such as students and their parents.

Social neuroscientists confirm empathizing is a human capacity that begins as early as infancy (Decety & Ickes, 2009; Decety & Lamm, 2006). The cognitive sophistication, by which empathy is enacted, as well as with whom and how much empathy is expressed, develops over time. Similarly, Barr (2011) found that a teacher’s perspective-taking abilities significantly improved his or her capacity to respond to and interpret the behavior of youth. Perspective taking is the cognitive capacity used to adopt others’ psychologi-cal point of view (Davis, 1994). Without deep connections to students and



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asset-based views of their difference(s), it is hard to tell how teachers develop the capacity to engage in perspective taking to the degree that they can con-sistently produce favorable student outcomes for youth of color.

Bridget Cooper’s (2010) work attempts to connect TCE to practice. She derived four forms of empathy differentiated by various contextual factors including class size, number of years of professional experience, curriculum, un-empathetic school managers/administrators, and school policies. Leaning primarily on teachers’ own conceptions of empathy, she determined empathy impacts teachers’ relationship building, student assessment, and the mainte-nance of a safe, trusting classroom environment. Little information was offered for how teachers in the study developed the propensity to empathize or the experiences or knowledge shaping their conception. Variables of teacher–student difference, such as race, and its impact are much less explored in this work. There is much evidence in the literature that suggests these vari-ables likely influence teachers’ perceptions of youth and families who are different and how they subsequently negotiate various interactions with them.

Whiteness, White Female Teachers, Race Construction, and Empathy

Marx (2006) and Picower (2009) find that White women aspiring to teach are many times not aware of their racism. Passive or unexamined racism is acted out, rather than spoken explicitly, in the ways that teachers talk (down) to students, pity them, and in the way they arrange instruction. Whiteness veils a White teacher’s ability to recognize the multiple ways their attitudes, beliefs, and cultural perceptions disadvantage students of color (Bell, 2002). Whiteness is unearned. It is a privilege bestowed on White people at birth that conveniently cloaks the reality of racial difference. The promise of empathy is not so that White women can fully feel with or grasp the hardships of poverty or racial oppression. Instead, the application of empathy provides an alternate lens from which to draw conclusions about the human experi-ence. Whiteness does not disappear when White people decide to teach in communities of color. Therefore, because whiteness tends to influence con-structions of diverse students (Allen, 1999; Hinchey, 2006; Landsman, 2009; Leonardo, 2009; Sleeter, 2004), empathy, when better understood as a profes-sional tool of the teaching trade, may be useful for minimizing adverse out-comes that come as a result of students being misread or misunderstood.

McIntyre (1997) and Sleeter (2004) suggest White women’s visions of race difference, racism, and whiteness are highly influential to how they con-struct images and perceptions of non-White people, and themselves in rela-tionship to other White people and people of color. Conceptions of diverse




students and beliefs about what they can accomplish has roots in the teacher’s racialized understanding of that culture group. White women’s conceptions are shaped over time and will likely take time to change or shift (Frankenberg, 1993). This understanding cannot be divorced from how teachers subse-quently express care; how they construct and communicate student expecta-tions; or the steps they take to learn students and “feel what they feel” in their expression of empathy. The conception and expression of empathy in urban and multicultural contexts must be understood relative to the influence of race and whiteness for shaping one’s social and cultural perspective. Analysis of the links between teacher conception and her practice, as evidenced in the range of stakeholder interactions, may be among the best indicators for dis-cerning the utility of empathy in the professional teaching context. Studying these links with White female teachers is simply a point of departure rather than an end goal.

Exploring the risks of empathy for White teachers. There are risks when teach-ers’ conceptions of empathy are racially coded. It is easy to interpret students’ home lives, culture, and communities from a cultural deficit orientation or for empathy to become a mechanism to pity students. Ullman and Hecsh (2011) confirm that White teachers and teachers of color need to be careful about pathologizing students of color and calling it empathy. Like Boler (1999), the women insist, “Empathy is produced within networks of power relations” (p. 624). Beliefs about one’s own degree of empathy and the best way to apply empathy when negotiating interactions with youth should be consid-ered in light of one’s own position of privilege and authority in the context. Teachers have a tremendous amount of influence in the classroom, and there-fore must be mindful about how their interactions improve or impel student growth and intellectual development. Unrecognized power and privilege are threats to the application of empathy.

White female teachers can believe they are empathetic, but actually be the complete opposite. In Delgado’s (1996) “Rodrigo Chronicles,” Rodrigo ruminates how easy it is for White people to think of themselves as having more empathy than they really do in his concept of false empathy. Correspondingly, Marx and Pray (2011) found that their White preservice teachers demonstrate evidence of false empathy. The young aspiring teachers made loose judgments and assumptions about Mexican people based on mis-informed perspectives, hidden prejudices, and unspoken biases related to Mexican culture and the Mexican way of life. False empathy causes one to unintentionally marginalize the very people they intend to help or serve. It also simultaneously (a) relinquishes the White person from any guilt, (b) feeds his or her own egotistical need to earn rewards for “helping,” and/or (c)



Warren 579

minimizes the personal distress she may experience when attempting to avoid helping. For empathy to be expressed authentically, the helper has to respond in the helping circumstance with no reference to rewards for responding or the ease of responding. Also the helper must respond without consideration of escaping the helping circumstance, regardless of how hard responding may become (Batson, 1991). Either way, the conception of empathy, includ-ing the White teacher’s perception about students of color, the judgment made about how to respond to students’ need, and the action he or she actu-ally takes to respond, are influenced to some degree by whiteness, race, and the legacy of racism in U.S. social institutions.

Method

The primary question driving this study was how does conceptions of empa-thy by early career White female teachers influence their professional inter-actions with students and families of color? Interviews, document analysis, and administration of Mark H. Davis’ (1994) Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) were the data sources used to discern the dimensions of each teacher participant’s (TP) conception of empathy and construction of a trustworthy teaching narrative. Interviews with the four White female TPs provided one perspective from which to judge their conceptions of empathy. The IRI, a reliable and validated instrument for assessing empathy from the field of social psychology, offered another analytic perspective. Interviews with a group of each TP’s professional colleagues (PCs) followed interviews with each White female TP.

Participants

Each name used in this article is a pseudonym. Ms. Terry, Ms. Eisen, and Ms. Thompson were each in their third-year teaching after having just com-pleted their Teach for America commitment. Ms. Foreman was a second-year teacher and career changer. She was a former social worker, the oldest of the four TPs, and the only one to be married with children. Table 1 features more detailed information on each TP.

The four women were recruited for participation through emails forwarded to the author’s professional network—a network of principals, teachers, guidance counselors, and other university stakeholders. The only criteria were that participants had to identify as White and female and be in her first 3 to 5 years of professional teaching in a large Midwestern city where the study was conducted. Ms. Terry, Eisen, Thompson, and Foreman were not paid for their participation. Each TP confirmed in her reply email that she



580

Tab

le 1

. T

each

er D

emog

raph

ics.

Tea

cher

par

ticip

ant

and

her

IRI e

mpa

thy

ratin

gBa

ckgr

ound

No.

of y

ears

te

achi

ngR

easo

n fo

r te

achi

ng

Ms.

Ter

ryEC

= A

vera

ge(2

3)PT

= H

igh

(24)

Hig

h sc

hool

Eng

lish

teac

her

Tea

ch fo

r A

mer

ica

Alu

mni

Gre

w u

p in

sub

urbs

Unm

arri

edH

igh

on P

T s

cale

of t

he IR

ILo

w o

n th

e EC

sca

le

3“I

did

n’t

feel

like

tha

t [a

car

eer

deco

ratin

g th

e ho

mes

of

rich

Whi

te p

eopl

e] w

as r

eally

hel

ping

any

one

. . .

It’s

like

I w

asn’

t do

ing

anyt

hing

kin

d of

goo

d . .

. in

the

gre

ater

w

orld

. . .

The

mor

e re

sear

ch I

did

on m

y ow

n ab

out

educ

atio

n, t

he e

duca

tion

gap,

and

the

rea

l ine

quiti

es t

hat

exis

t w

ithin

edu

catio

n . .

. I s

aw h

ow s

hort

chan

ged

a lo

t of

ou

r st

uden

ts w

ere

bein

g . .

. I f

eel l

ike

I’m fu

lfilli

ng a

nee

d.”

Ms.

Eis

enEC

= H

igh

(27)

PT =

Ave

rage

(14)

Mid

dle

scho

ol s

cien

ce

teac

her

Tea

ch fo

r A

mer

ica

Alu

mni

Gre

w u

p in

rur

al/s

mal

l tow

nU

nmar

ried

Hig

h on

the

EC

sca

leLo

w o

n th

e PT

sca

le

3“N

ever

rea

lly t

houg

ht a

bout

tea

chin

g ne

cess

arily

. . .

[I]

at

tend

ed a

libe

ral a

rts

colle

ge t

hat

enco

urag

ed s

tude

nts

to

thin

k ab

out

the

wor

ld a

roun

d th

em a

nd t

hink

abo

ut h

ow

they

’re

impa

ctin

g th

e w

orld

and

abo

ut t

heir

rac

ial i

dent

ity

. . .

spen

t a

lot

of t

ime

thin

king

abo

ut g

radu

atio

n an

d w

hat

I wan

ted

to d

o af

terw

ards

. . .

I m

et s

omeo

ne a

nd t

alke

d ab

out

his

expe

rien

ce t

each

ing

in in

ner

city

Los

Ang

eles

. . .

an

d th

at’s

whe

n I d

ecid

ed t

o ap

ply

for

Tea

ch fo

r A

mer

ica.

”M

s. T

hom

pso

nEC

= A

vera

ge(1

9)PT

= A

vera

ge(1

7)H

igh

scho

ol m

ath

teac

her

Tea

ch fo

r A

mer

ica

Alu

mni

Gre

w u

p in

affl

uent

urb

an

com

mun

ityU

nmar

ried

Ave

rage

for

EC a

nd P

T s

cale

s

3“I

alw

ays

had

Tea

ch F

or A

mer

ica

in t

he b

ack

of m

y m

ind

. . .

I tho

ught

, ‘O

h, a

m I

supp

osed

to

be d

oing

thi

s?’ .

. .

I rea

lized

wow

, I c

an a

ffect

live

s al

mos

t, ce

rtai

nly

just

as

prof

ound

ly[a

s be

com

ing

a ph

ysic

ian]

, but

alm

ost

mor

e pr

ofou

ndly

thr

ough

edu

catio

n.”

Ms.

Fo

rem

anEC

= A

vera

ge(1

9)PT

= A

vera

ge(1

9)Pr

imar

y gr

ades

tea

cher

Form

er s

ocia

l wor

ker/

m

id-c

aree

r ch

ange

rG

rew

up

in s

ubur

bsM

arri

ed t

o an

Afr

ican

A

mer

ican

Rat

ed a

vera

ge fo

r PT

and

EC

sca

les

2“E

duca

tion

was

my

refu

ge .

. . I

knew

I w

ould

hel

p ki

ds th

at

wer

e ha

ving

trou

bled

live

s or

goi

ng th

roug

h tr

oubl

es

. . .

[I] w

orke

d as

a c

asew

orke

r . .

. I w

ante

d to

wor

k w

ith

prim

arily

Afr

ican

Am

eric

an s

tude

nts

[and

] low

-inco

me

stud

ents

. . .

eve

ntua

lly w

ent b

ack

to s

choo

l to

beco

me

a te

ache

r.”

Not

e. IR

I = In

terp

erso

nal R

eact

ivity

Inde

x; E

C =

em

path

ic c

once

rn; P

T =

per

spec

tive

taki

ng.



Warren 581

satisfied the aforementioned criteria. Ms. Foreman taught in a private school while the other TPs taught in three separate charter schools. The youth attend-ing each of the charter schools were public school students who, if not for the charter school inhabiting the closed down public school in their neighbor-hoods, would have likely attended that school anyway.

Each TP also referred 5 or 6 PCs for interview. The PCs included other teachers in her building and at least 1 supervisor (e.g. principal, assistant principal, or instructional coach). The PCs were recommended for interview based on each TP’s firm trust in the PC’s ability to talk honestly, candidly, accurately, and pointedly about her work as an education professional. At least 2 PC’s for Ms. Terry, Eisen, Thompson, and Foreman consented to par-ticipate in the study. There were a total of 11 PC interviews bringing the total participants for this study to 15.

Procedure

TP interviews. Ms. Terry, Eisen, Thompson, and Foreman completed one semi-structured, open-ended in-depth interview (Glesne, 2011; Rossman & Rallis, 2003) that lasted between 1 and 1.5 hr. They defined empathy, its develop-ment, cultivation, and application as a function of culturally responsive teach-ing. The women were also asked to discuss why they chose to become teachers and what led them to teach in communities of color. Finally, the TPs talked in greater detail about their use of empathy in practice, why empathy is impor-tant, and the consequences or benefits of its application to interactions with racially and ethnically diverse student populations and their families.

Mark H. Davis’ (1994) IRI: An empathy assessment. The TPs also completed Davis’ (1994) IRI during their initial interview. The IRI took each TP about 10 min to complete. The IRI is a widely used and respected empathy assessment instru-ment in the field of social psychology. However, it is used in this study as less of an empathy assessment tool and more as a way to frame subsequent discussion about empathy from an epistemologically neutral point of view. That is, the author wanted each TP to be able to contextualize the same operation of empa-thy’s expression, as described through items on the IRI, to her professional prac-tice. Questions such as “I sometimes find it difficult to see things from the “other guy’s” point of view” and “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me” were useful for concretizing where and how empathy might be expressed in each TP’s professional practice.

Discussions of empathy up to this point during the interview with the TP tended to center around hypothetical situations of her social interaction with strangers, friends, or close loved ones. Alternatively, the IRI questions are




written in the first person, thus further allowing each of the TPs to separately reflect on and imagine in real time how empathy, as framed in the line of ques-tions asked on the IRI, mattered for her interactions with students and fami-lies. To that end, the tool was very useful for personalizing the dimensions of empathy’s expression. Moreover, each TP’s score on the instrument offered some anecdotal evidence about her physical, emotional, and intellectual orien-tations in social interactions. For instance, the IRI was useful for demonstrat-ing whether the TP tended to respond to the needs of others more affectively or not and to what degree the TP was adept at or akin to adopting the social and cultural perspectives of others when attempting to respond to their needs.

Procedurally speaking, the TPs conjectured whether they would earn a very high, high, average, low, or very low empathy rating on the IRI and articulated a rationale for the empathy rating they selected. The teachers then took the IRI, earned a score, and provided the researcher feedback about the discrepancy, if any, between the empathy rating she guessed she would earn and the empathy rating she actually earned.

The norming sample (Davis, 1980) for this instrument includes 582 (N = 582) college-aged females. Females tended to score higher on each scale of the IRI. Reliability for the empathic concern scale was .73 (M = 21.67, SD = 3.83), referenced as 22 and 4 for construction of the empathy ratings in Table 2 above. Reliability for perspective taking was .75 (M = 17.96, SD = 4.85) or 18 and 5. Each TP with the exception of Ms. Foreman are under the age of 24. In other words, They are about the same age as the women in the norming sample. Table 2 is a generic empathy rating system developed based on a normal distribution of the aforementioned means and standard deviations. It also features the definitions of the two dimensions of empathy used in the briefer version of the IRI administered to each TP.

Table 2. IRI Score and Empathy Ratings.

Empathic Concern measures “the tendency to experience feelings of warmth, compassion, and concern for others” (Davis, 1983, p. 117).

Perspective Taking measures “the tendency to adopt the point of view of other people in everyday life.” (Davis, 1983, p. 117).

Score Rating Score

26 or higher High 23 or higher18–25 Average 14 to 2217 or lower Low 13 or lower

Note. IRI = Interpersonal Reactivity Index.



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The ability to adopt or acquire another individual’s point of view is central to the empathetic response (Eisenberg, 1991; Eisenberg & Strayer, 1987). Furthermore, perspective taking underlies one’s capacity for applying empathic concern (Davis, 1994; Oswald, 1996, 2002). Data from the IRI and interview were used to better triangulate, capture, and characterize the rela-tionship of each TP’s conception of empathy to an analysis of her teaching narrative constructed from interviews with the TP and her PCs.

PC interviews. The author also conducted structured interviews (Rossman & Rallis, 2003) with each PC that each lasted between 40 min and an hour. The PCs were asked to provide specific, concrete examples from the TP’s profes-sional teaching practice. The interview required that each PC offer physical examples, stories, and perspective related to several indicators of culturally responsive teaching which included the following: the academic success for each TP’s students; how the TP demonstrated care; how she dealt with par-ents; the types of culturally appropriate academic assessments the TP tended to use; and the process each woman engaged to plan culturally responsive lessons. Each TP’s group of PCs included a supervisory figure. This helped to develop greater inter-subjective agreement among individuals who work with the TP in different capacities, thus offering a view of her practice from varied viewpoints. Finally, the TPs were not told which of the five PCs referred for interview actually consented participation and completed an interview.

Data Analysis

A phenomenological approach was taken to analyze the interview data for this study (Moustakas, 1994). After multiple reads of the TP transcripts, the author clustered the sentences, quotes, and statements made by each TP to form TCE. TCE is a series of teachers’ beliefs about empathy and its applica-tion to their work with students of color derived from interview data with the four teacher participants. TCE include their definitions of empathy, how they describe empathy is developed and rehearsed, and the instances for which they discuss empathy’s application in practice. I also construct TCE by exam-ining each TP’s conjecture of her empathy rating, the rating she earned based on her IRI score, and her explanation of the results as compared to her origi-nal projection.

PC interviews were initially coded based on indicators of culturally respon-sive teaching and clustered by TP. For example, three of Ms. Foreman’s PCs were interviewed. After at least two reads of the PC interview transcripts, I recorded and categorized the overlapping words, phrases, examples, stories,




and anecdotes to construct a narrative of Ms. Foreman’s teaching. The indica-tors of culturally responsive teaching (Gay, 2010, 2013; Ladson-Billings, 1994) provided a useful framework from which to construct such a narrative. Judging the degree of cultural responsiveness exhibited by each TP was not an aim of the current study. These data were organized in a table to create a rounded, multidimensional depiction of each TP’s teaching practice. The actual narrative is an overview or snapshot of the salient behaviors, habits, and attitudes of the TPs based on the collective testimony and feedback of PC participants across indicators of culturally responsive teaching. This thematic analysis (Glesne, 2011) allowed for a constant case comparison reminiscent of the grounded theory approach. TPs spoke at length about their own teaching from a personal perspective, which was also referenced to story their teaching.

The final layer of analyses included examination of each TP’s teaching narrative by comparing it to her TCE. I searched out parallels regarding their descriptions of empathy’s relevance to stakeholder interactions and what the TPs did in practice. The narratives were scrutinized closely for evidence of convergence or divergence from TCE. The connections between themes of TCE and the teacher’s narrative are noted. Contradictions between teacher’s construction of empathy as a professional disposition and what they say about their own practice when making sense of empathy’s intersection are also highlighted. The discrepancies form the content of the four archetypes to be discussed in the next section.

Findings: Tracing the Contradictions, Understanding the Conflicts

There are two types of conflicts that emerged in this study. Tier 1 conflicts are internal, abstract, and superficial differences in perception between teachers and their students or families, similar to perception gaps described earlier in this article. The archetype represent Tier 1 conflicts. They are themes that succinctly characterize a statement of empathy’s conception by one of the four TPs. There is one dominant archetype per TP. Each archetype is an actual quote from Ms. Eisen, Terry, Thompson, or Foreman used to sum up how she describes empathy’s relevance to becoming a culturally responsive teacher. Each TP’s narrative and its relationship to the TCE are described under the heading practice. The archetype parallels a pattern of behavior identified in each TP’s teaching narrative. The outward, observable negative behavioral responses resulting from Tier 1 conflicts are described under the heading out-comes. These Tier 2 conflicts are the material consequences of the disconti-nuity in TCE and practice (see Figure 1 for conceptual model).



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Archetype 1: “I Know What It’s Like to Be An Outsider. I’ve Been Oppressed.”

When asked to discuss how empathy impacts her teaching, Ms. Terry empha-sized that she knows what it feels like to be “an outsider.” Her feelings of marginalization as a lesbian are the experiences she likens to the oppression she perceives Black students experience because of their race. She asserts, “ [I] see a lot of areas that life is more difficult . . . because of [my sexual] ori-entation.” Her experience as an “outsider” is the primary frame of reference she uses to make sense of empathy’s application to her work with the Black students she teaches. Terry maintains that empathy is especially important to her lesson planning.

Ms. Terry goes on to say empathy helps her to “get to know [students] because that’s when you learn things.” She emphasizes that empathy is “feeling what someone else feels or have some kind of emotional reaction that would be similar to what another person’s would be in a similar situation.” She con-cludes, “[I’m] very empathetic person.” Her rating as high on the perspective taking scale of the IRI suggests she prioritizes seeing problems, circumstances, and situations from other people’s points of view. The extent to which she effectively does this with her students could not be as easily determined. Still, it seems that her conception of empathy includes valuing others’ opinions.

Practice. A central theme of Ms. Terry’s teaching was her intensive focus on social justice–oriented learning. Colleagues disclose that Ms. Terry intention-ally chooses topics, examples, and lesson activities that are driven by her passion for equality and equity. One colleague describes her as “issue focused.” She thinks strategically about what she presents and how she pres-ents it. Another colleague says she engages in clear “agenda teaching.” As the colleagues describe it, equality is what she wants for herself. Marginalization

Figure 1. Charting outcomes of dominant conceptions of empathy.




because of her sexual orientation significantly shapes how she interacts with her predominately Black students. Moreover, PCs agree that Ms. Terry will “turn circles” to reach students. She works hard to “reach” them and build strong one on one relationships with them. Still, PCs find that there are discon-nects between Terry’s selection of content, her excessive use of a discussion-based instructional format, and the English teacher’s ability to produce the intended academic outcomes. They cite Ms. Terry’s work as notably creative, each spotlighting her well-decorated classroom and expertise as an interior designer (her undergraduate major).

Outcomes. Colleagues cite Ms. Terry’s sincere transparency and vulnerabil-ity as admirable. Students who self identify as LGBTQ have benefited tre-mendously from her advocacy efforts such as her willingness to advise the school’s gay–straight alliance despite significant pushback from colleagues and administrators. She stood up for these students in a hostile school envi-ronment. Under her leadership, the LGBTQ population of students in her predominately Black traditional public high school posted its highest gradu-ation rates during the time she advised the alliance.

Alternatively, Ms. Terry fails to separate her strong personal experiences as a sexual minority from the experiences and opinions of her Black students. Conflicts include the following:

•• Several Black males refused to attend Ms. Terry’s class in protest of class lessons they perceived related too much to her sexuality. Her openness and transparency has been viewed as uncomfortable for stu-dents as reported by Ms. Terry’s PCs.

•• The persistent theme of social justice in Ms. Terry’s class is based primarily on her perspectives of justice, not her students.

•• Colleagues observed classroom as a volatile space, especially when Ms. Terry unsuccessfully managed and/or responded to student dissent of her opinions.

•• Terry’s students get her easily frustrated.•• Low teaching efficacy. One PC believes she won’t last long in the field

of education because of her passion.•• Terry’s students are not academically successful despite her myriad

efforts. Fear by PCs of her eventual teacher burn out.

Archetype 2: “I’m Emotionally Reactive. I’m Used to Being Right.”

Ms. Eisen declares,



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I’m very emotionally defensive of my kids. [I] build like emotionally real relationships with them . . . its important for us to be aware of where our kids are coming from as teachers . . . racially and economically.

Ms. Eisen perceives herself as very close to her students, especially when interacting with them one on one outside of class. On the contrary, Eisen laments she does not always care to hear students’ side of the story, especially during interactions in class. She’d rather give students the perception that she is fair, rigorous, and unrelenting. Her insistence on being right has been a point of contention for her family and friends since childhood. She finds that this same compulsion carries over into her work life when interacting with students and families.

When first asked, Ms. Eisen describes empathy as “taking into account somebody else’s experience or feelings.” She acknowledges the imperative to think about how others might be experiencing a circumstance when coordi-nating a response to his or her needs. Eisen concedes, “I’d be higher than average, but I always want to be more empathetic.” Ms. Eisen rated high on the empathic concern scale of the IRI and low on the perspective taking scale. This suggests that she is likely to demonstrate higher levels of compassion and sympathy without necessarily considering how the other person is feel-ing or experiencing their circumstance from his or her point of view. Eisen acknowledges, “I’ve always been like ‘Oh I’m empathetic because I’m emo-tionally reactive.’” The capacity to demonstrate compassion is advantageous for her social/relational interactions with youth as they have led to more car-ing, trusting relationships with her students outside of the classroom.

Practice. Eisen’s PCs agree she has fairly positive one on one relationships with students outside of the classroom, but in class, her interactions with students are much more capricious and tense. Each PC uses the term “care” to describe how she feels about the middle schoolers she teaches. Her col-leagues also confirm Ms. Eisen is very professional and that she takes her job as a science teacher seriously. Ms. Eisen is knowledgeable of her content area. PCs portray her as a serious teacher who rigidly follows the rules, using words such as “process-oriented,” “rigorous,” “professional,” “matter of fact,” “academic,” and “serious” to emphasize their deference for her prac-tice. These are traits highly valued by administrators in her school.

Dually, these characterizations mark her as excessively rigid, incapable of having flexible interactions with students, particularly in class. PCs peg her as “too rule driven and less receptive to student needs.” This disposition is also thought to alienate students more often than not, making her interactions with them oftentimes tumultuous. Students are given very little room to




express their points of view or opinions about her decisions in class. As one colleague explains, “I don’t think that she is really receptive . . . I know we’re supposed to be consistent, but there is always room to be more receptive.” Even Eisen admits,

Sometimes I don’t really care about what your side of the story is . . . I’ve always felt successful . . . Usually I like make an argument in my head and I’d be like “I’m so right” and I’d be like “oh, my argument is so great” . . . I’ve never thought of it [empathy] as intellectual and emotional.

In actuality, she does care, but feels the pressure to minimize distractions to the rigor and order of the learning environment. Her teaching narrative reveals Ms. Eisen rarely stops to account for the multiple issues that contribute to the problem students may be having such as their tardiness to school or the diffi-culty of completing homework assignments. Eisen insists on treating students “all the same [emphasis added]” while simultaneously confessing she has already made a decision for how to handle a situation before undertaking it. A well ran classroom is her priority, not students’ feelings. Therefore, her response tends to be emotional and quick allowing little room for student feedback.

Outcomes. Ms. Eisen’s capacity to express warmth and care in one-on-one interactions outside of the classroom provides little traction for her ability to produce positive social and academic outcomes inside the classroom. Acts that include going out of her way to advocate a student transfer from her previous school to her new school are shaded by ancillary claims that Ms. Eisen is not receptive and too rigid with students. Her insistence on being right and inflexible produces consequences. Conflicts include

•• Class’ productivity is sluggish due to high number of behavioral dis-ruptions. Colleagues report that students don’t feel heard.

•• Students’ academic disengagement persist.•• Students are not academically successful according to school and

district-level measures in Eisen’s content area.•• Ms. Eisen tends not to allow students the space to articulate what is on

their minds in class. This orientation complicates and undermines her efforts to support students socially and intellectually.

Archetype 3: “I’m a Teacher. Results Are What Matter Most.”

Thompson contends empathizing with others requires a balance between “seeing their perspective,” but avoiding the temptation to be “preoccupied



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with how other people are feeling” and “letting [an understanding of others] rule [her] decision making.” She confirms that when preparing instruction, teachers should be,

planning to meet kids where they are . . . where they’re comfortable and really activating that prior knowledge that comes from their being . . . I think every endeavor to invest in students . . . should be in a culturally responsive way.

On the contrary, she confirms “I [will be] dishonest [to] meet kids where they are so that they feel like I’m responding to them rather than just lecturing them.” She sets instructional goals and will meet them by any means neces-sary, most times not considering the social and cultural dimensions of her interactions with students and families. Ms. Thompson believes that teachers must create a “strict disciplined atmosphere.” Spending too much time think-ing about how to respond to students’ social and emotional needs can be a distraction from the bottom line, which is student academic success. Thompson concedes, “The teacher needs to think about where students are coming from.” On the contrary, Thompson insists that the decisions she makes are ultimately based on what she thinks are right.

Ms. Thompson offers that empathy involves “putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and attempting to feel what they feel in that moment.” She later affirms empathizing with others is about “stepping back” and “seeking to understand before being understood.” In contrast, Thompson divulges, “I’m very opinionated.” The math teacher has a clear vision for what she wants to accomplish with students and what it will take to get it done, requiring little input from anyone. Thompson projects herself to be “between average and high” empathy. She was two points from low on the empathic concern scale and a few points higher on the perspective taking scale. These data under-score Thompson’s belief that the application of empathy may include some emotional sharing and an attempt to see the helping circumstance from oth-ers’ point of view. However, these are not things that are a priority for her as a teacher. She responds emphatically after receiving her empathy rating, “No shock or surprise . . . [I’m] very stubborn and [I have] a strong personality.” Thompson invests little energy vacillating how empathetic to be with the predominately Latino students she teaches. She has an outcome in mind, and that is the primary motivator for how she responds to their needs.

Practice. By all accounts, Ms. Thompson is a strong teacher with “high stu-dent expectations.” PCs describe her as “demanding” and “firm.” They sepa-rately concur that Ms. Thompson’s classroom environment is rigorous, but fun and engaging. Thompson, a former thespian, talks at length about




incorporating her theater experience into her classroom including how she uses her voice and selection of guided instruction activities for her students. PCs belabor the point that teachers in her school are not and should not be viewed as social workers or counselors. Her principal contends,

We’re not psychologists. We’re not social workers. We’re teachers. We should narrow our focus to what we know . . . and impart that knowledge to the kids in the most neutral, effective manner possible. Now obviously, if you want to make connections that would help them understand, that are culturally based, then you can do so but don’t stray into the murky waters of placing cultural relevance over the subject at hand, and especially in an exacting subject as Algebra where it’s really black and white. It’s either you know the answer or you don’t know the answer.

Thompson’s principal confirms that he respects Thompson’s ability to teach, rather than her capacity to be concerned with the “murky waters” of cultural relevance. Nonetheless, colleagues concur Thompson is “demand-ing,” but “caring,” “firm,” but “creative.” She will seek out student perspec-tive to learn why they are not meeting her expectations, but tends to consider their prior experiences and knowledge primarily when lesson planning. It is unclear if her implementation connects with students interpersonally, in the way that she may hope.

Outcomes. Thompson insists empathy most informs tasks that require little human exchange, such as lesson planning for example. Thompson owns, “In method, I’m empathetic, but I feel like it doesn’t affect me as much as it should . . . I think about it, but I don’t necessarily act on what I’m thinking.” Data suggest that Ms. Thompson is viewed by each of her colleagues as an effective teacher because her students are academically successful according to school and district measures. Her interactions with students appear to be fun and fair. She is driven to produce results that are marginally related to students’ intellectual and/or social needs and interests. Some conflicts in Ms. Thompson’s case include

•• Parental complaints and the perception that Ms. Thompson is too harsh on students.

•• There is little room for student dissent or input. This approach seems to be supported by the culture of her school.

•• The interpretation of her relationships and interactions with students and families as caring are questionable.



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Archetype 4: “I Can Empathize With Students. It’s Harder to be Empathetic With the Adult.”

Ms. Foreman has strong opinions about empathy, especially for the Black children she teaches because she is married to a Black man and is a mother of three biracial children. She makes several references to her own children when describing the imperative for empathy with the students and families that she serves. Her identity as a mother of three children who are likely iden-tified by others as Black is central to how she makes sense of her work as a first-grade teacher. Foreman claims,

As a parent, I put myself in the role of parent in their perspective and I’m totally projecting my beliefs onto them, so easier for me to empathize with a students that comes in everyday without eating and sometimes its harder to be empathetic with the adult in that situation

Parents are especially important to her success because her students are six or seven years old. She needs their cooperation and support to ensure learning is being reinforced at home. Foreman makes assumptions about what parents should and should not do in support of their children’s learning largely based on her convictions as a parent. These assumptions shade her decision making and influences how she negotiates interactions with her students’ parents.

Ms. Foreman provides a robust definition of empathy. She confirms empa-thy requires,

Care and concern for others, you know, where they’re coming from, what their background is and what their needs are . . . helping them kind get to where they need to be . . . its like compassionate and caring for others.

Foreman believes she possesses “more than average” empathy. She was actually rated average for both scales of empathy according to the IRI, but her score on empathic concern was close to low, hence it appears she tends to be less sympathetic in social interactions. Data suggest she values seeing others’ perspectives when she perceives that the person is vulnerable or marginalized in some way. In this case, she views her students as vulnerable to their par-ent’s decision making. Thus, she feels much more empathetic for them than she does for their parents. Foreman insists that empathy includes, “under-standing where somebody is coming from or just being able to put yourself in their shoes.” Conversely, she has strong beliefs about the type of teacher (and parent) “these kids” need, and thus has no problem communicating her strong opinion about how families should be parenting their children.




Practice. Colleagues avow that Ms. Foreman is very hands on with parents. She sends messages home regularly and invites them into her classroom. She is intentional about communicating regularly with parents and ensuring they stay aware of their child’s progress. On the other hand, PCs confirm Ms. Foreman has a strong desire to “fix” her students. Each colleague uses the word “fix” to describe Ms. Foreman’s interactions with students and her demonstration of care. One colleague insists,

Being a social worker with a social worker background, she viewed her children as cases, and how she could fix it . . . She’s caring in the fact that she wants to fix it, but sometimes it’s a hindrance to think as a teacher that you can fix everything.

Her compulsion to find answers that “fix” student problems is understood by her colleagues as an indicator of her sincere care for students, but PCs allude that parents perceive her as overbearing. Another colleague stresses, “Every time she has a struggling student, she wants to fix the problem.” There is nothing that Ms. Foreman feels she cannot handle. This demon-strates her tenacity, but it becomes problematic when stakeholders become silenced or further marginalized through interaction with her.

Foreman’s conceptions of empathy’s application to her teaching practice foregrounds how she would react if she were subject to the conditions of stu-dents and families, instead of accounting for how parents might be experiencing and dealing with their less than favorable circumstance. She confirms, “When it is something that the parent is not doing . . . it makes it harder to me sometimes to be honest, because I feel like they’re an adult.” Still, Foreman’s conception of empathy does not include an accounting of the various social, cultural, political, or environmental variables mediating parents’ involvement and engagement. She, like Eisen, chooses when to be caring or sympathetic, but only to the degree that it does not violate her belief or expectations about what the other person should be doing, or should be able to accomplish for themselves.

Outcomes. The three PCs interviewed report that Ms. Foreman is passionate about providing her students with the best learning experiences possible. Her classroom is well decorated and highly engaging to visitors. Conversely, the PCs disclose that Ms. Foreman’s “judgment” of parents too often alienates them. Conflicts include

•• Her interactions with parents are described as “harsh” and parents not wanting to interact with her.

•• Ms. Foreman’s strong perspectives about what her first graders need contrasts the perspectives of her students’ parents, which has led to several heated verbal altercations and parental alienation.



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•• Parental participation and investment are significantly lower when compared to other grade-level teacher peers.

•• Inconsistent and contentious communication between teacher and parents.

Discussion

Terry, Eisen, Thompson, and Foreman generally conceive of empathy as a mechanism for sharing affectively with others so that one is positioned to respond with fidelity to their needs. They separately concur empathy requires “feel[ing] what someone else feels,” “account[ing] for others’ feelings,” and “attempt[ing] to feel what they feel in that moment.” As the women reflect on the utility of empathy in their professional practice, their conceptions of empa-thy manifest as personal philosophies that frame significant aspects of their professional decision making. For instance, Ms. Terry’s instructional design, content selection, and delivery is largely driven by a “social justice agenda” rooted in her own contrived framework of marginalization. The data implies that she has not spent much time consulting with students or spending time in their communities to better understand their views and the versions of “oppres-sion” they experience. Yet, she makes judgments about the degree and nature of the oppression her students may have experienced as perceived through the lens of her own subordination, even though she has little evidence to make such an assertion. This dominant frame of reference shapes how she negoti-ates interactions with students and families. It is argued here that her instruc-tional orientation and the construction of oppression rooted in her conception of empathy are likely also influenced by her whiteness. As previously described, there are a number of adverse outcomes that surface as a result.

A similar trend is observed among the other three teachers as well. Each of them has an ascendant way of seeing their work and interactions with stake-holders. The TPs, each in her own way, uses their authority to make decisions in interaction with students and families that may or may not consider the other person’s point of view. Their conceptions of empathy flow out of a dom-inant social and cultural perspective that informs the way they interpret vari-ous aspects of their work and the needs of students and families. Ms. Eisen acknowledges her tendency to be emotionally driven whereas Ms. Thompson emphasizes the pitfalls of being “preoccupied with how other people are feel-ing,” while Ms. Foreman conflates her beliefs and desires as a parent of bira-cial children with the beliefs and desires of her student’s parents. Their positions of power predispose them to negotiate the application of empathy in culturally hegemonic terms. Contradictions associated with each teacher’s description of empathy’s utility in her practice and the reality of her




interactions with stakeholders give rise to the set of Tier 1 and Tier 2 conflicts described in the previous section. Good intentions are not a substitute for cul-turally accurate and appropriate perceptions of students. This study under-scores how good intentions precede misleading assumptions that exacerbate the perception gap.

Whiteness, Good Intentions, and Empathy

The four White female teachers in this study had a uniform response of wanting to “help” students of color when discussing their aspirations to teach in com-munities of color. Whiteness works covertly through White teachers’ good intentions. Whiteness imbues White people with the privilege, confidence, and audacity to make uninformed judgments and assumptions about the needs, ambitions, and capacities of diverse people (Roediger, 1994). This is no differ-ent in education (see Leonardo, 2009). Overlooking the consequences of White teachers’ good intentions can be harmful. The TP’s perceptions of who is in need of help, their ability to actually meet those needs, and the resulting con-flicts in practice signals that more attention must be given to the relevance and influence of dominant perspectives likely a result of each TP’s whiteness.

Similarly, these good intentions are prone to being a by-product of each teacher’s belief in her ability to empathize in some way with the students he or she teaches or will teach. Marx (2008) found that popular White female teach-ers had parallel experiences with students of color that made them favorites, but that the difference of whiteness obscured how these teachers interpreted behavior associated with racial and cultural difference. “Living a more pro-found life” as Ms. Thompson put it has little to do with the children she teaches. Her talents, intellect, education, experiences, and passion to help stu-dents who have been constructed as needy are more about her gratification, than student outcomes. This does not mean that students cannot and do not benefit. It does suggest that the teacher’s ego may be central to her decision to teach, which over time can cause significant conflict, much like that experi-enced by White antiracists in O’Brien’s (2003) study. Moreover, empathy as an altruistic variable is suspect when the teacher’s ego and desires are central to the decision to help, despite the form for which the help is offered (Batson, 1991). In this case, help comes in the form of each teacher’s decision to teach.

Much like any teacher, these four women are influenced by their personal, professional, and moral convictions. Being a lesbian, perpetually right, a mother, and an effective teacher are some of what frames how these women interpret what is best for their students and families. These identities only emerge as problematic when they do not allow for alternative forms of reason-ing. The egotistical compulsion to “fix” students, engage in an “issues-driven”



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teaching agenda, or be “too rigid” with students might also be explained by Delgado’s (1996) false empathy thesis. Either way, the source of the conflict is worth further investigation in the empirical literature.

Conclusion

Many young White teachers like those in this study enter the teaching profes-sion with a strong belief in their ability to make a difference in the lives of racially and ethnically diverse young people. They tend to possess the social and cultural capital most valued in mainstream society and the firm view that they know exactly what it takes to be successful. The pushback they may receive from youth and parents are signs of invisible, deep-seeded conflicts in philosophy, intention, and perspective that eventually produce physical conse-quences and contradictions. The whiteness of good intentions replaces humility with prerogative, as these young White teachers set out to teach without ever being truly primed or prepared for the experiences they will encounter. This scenario does little for producing better student outcomes, yet alternative certi-fication programs such as Teach For America are built on this very premise.

Young teachers who take on the difficult task of teaching in an urban school with good intentions of being a change agent must broker the bound-aries of their help with their stakeholders. Teacher conceptions of empathy as a professional teaching disposition and its connection to producing student outcomes must be discussed explicitly beginning in teacher preparation pro-grams (Pennington, Brock, & Ndura, 2012). Perspective taking is a necessary aspect of a teacher’s ongoing professional development. The field is continu-ing to expand knowledge of the role of empathy, and more specifically, per-spective taking in one’s teaching practice (Cooper, 2010; Dolby, 2012; Warren, 2013a, 2013b). Instructive models for understanding empathy’s application will benefit new teachers who teach in communities where they are the racial minority.

Future research must marry teacher conceptions’ of empathy to empirical examinations of empathy’s application in multicultural contexts. This may include mixed methods research that examines teacher conceptions of empa-thy through survey methods. This also includes intensive classroom observa-tion protocols of student–teacher interactions, interviews with school stakeholders, and student focus groups. Lastly, empirical education research on empathy should abstain from studies that attempt to judge (or label) a teacher as more or less empathetic. Instead, as is examined in this work, empathy should be understood as a tool of the teaching trade to be manipu-lated for the expressed purpose of helping teachers become more culturally responsive. Future studies should consider what exemplary teachers of




culturally diverse students already do, and extrapolate those approaches to existing models of empathy outside of the field of Education. This research can be enormously useful for further preparing and equipping teachers to become the culturally responsive teachers so many urban schools need.

Author’s Note

There have been changes in the author’s university affiliation subsequent to the time of the study.

Acknowledgment

I would like to acknowledge Bree Picower, Keisha McIntosh, Jennifer Olson, and Ali Michael for their thoughtful feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publi-cation of this article.

Note

1. I use the term minoritized to “signify the social construction of underrepresenta-tion and subordination in U.S. social institutions . . . ” (Harper, 2012, p. 9).

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Author Biography

Chezare A. Warren was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. He has over a decade of professional experience as a public school teacher and school administrator in Chicago Public Schools. Dr. Warren publishes in the areas of urban education, culturally responsive teaching, and critical race theory in education.


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Conflicts and Contradictions: Conceptions of Empathy and Good-Intentioned White Female Teachers

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