Empathy, Teacher Dispositions, and Preparation for Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Abstract

Culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) offers elaborate empirical and theoretical conventions for becoming an effective teacher of diverse youth. Empathy has been found to improve classroom teachers’ capacity to (re)act or respond to youth in ways that produce evidence of CRP. However, there are too few instructive models in teacher education that help connect teacher candidates’ knowledge of students and communities to development of efficacious physical habits, tendencies, and trends in observable behavior or teacher dispositions. The application of empathy operationalized through perspective taking is one such model useful to preparing teacher candidates to make professional decisions that produce evidence of CRP. Engaging teacher candidates in perspective taking—adopting the social perspectives of others as an act and process of knowing—invites them to obtain (and reason with) new knowledge of students and the sociocultural context where she or he will teach. Recommendations for modeling and practicing perspective taking in teacher education are discussed.

Illuminating political clarity in culturally relevant science instruction

“…While the precise enactment of CRP will vary across classrooms and teachers (Abt-Perkins, 2010; Souto-Manning & Martell, 2017), a commonality is how the teacher thinks about his/her students and consciously uses CRP to prepare students to think critically and be "competent" to deal with inequities in our world (Ladson-Billings, 2006, p. 30). CRP pedagogues show their students that they care deeply for them (Gay, 2000;Ladson-Billings, 2006;McKinney de Royston et al, 2017;Warren, 2018), reject deficit-model thinking about minoritized students (Howard, 2012;Ladson-Billings, 2006a), and view their students' cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005) as a resource for learning (Howard, 2012;Souto-Manning & Martell, 2017).…”

Analysis of Teachers’ Intercultural Sensitivity Levels in Multicultural Contexts

“…In order to transmit these skills and values to our students, we must first establish whether teachers possess them. It is a basic factor that allows us to develop a correct "cultural pedagogy" [32].…”

Nature in the Eye of the Beholder: A Case Study for Cultural Humility as a Strategy to Broaden Participation in STEM

“…In addition to a greater awareness of cultural contributions to disciplinary biases, culturally responsive pedagogy [71], or empathy on the part of educators, can increase the retention of underrepresented students. Instructors have little influence on the past experiences of their students, but instructors can practice sensitivity to their diverse ways of knowing.…”