Beyond Perspective Taking: Fostering Equity Through Critical Empathy and Intercultural Listening

Introduction

Social justice issues and concerns continue to impact higher education institutions, with students reporting a decline in experiences that cultivate empathy (Konrath et al., 2016). Moreover, educators are struggling to navigate the tension between the neoliberal aims of the modern university and the history of higher education as a space for encouraging the study of the liberal arts and being a good human (Cohen & Kisker, 2010). Given these issues, there are concerns for the social justice work undertaken by staff, faculty, and administrators who work to prepare students to navigate major academic milestones while simultaneously emphasizing students’ interconnectedness within a global community by promoting cross-cultural communication. Zhu (2011) explained that “the prerequisite and assurance for effective cross-cultural communication” is the ability to be interculturally empathic (p. 117). Put simply, one possible way to foster equity is through intercultural listening, which provides a unique opportunity to increase intercultural awareness by engaging in the practice of empathy.

In this chapter, the authors (a) introduce concepts of intercultural listening as a practice for educators to reconsider how they interact with students from diverse backgrounds and how they build relationships across sociocultural boundaries; (b) discuss traditional conceptualizations of empathy as the cornerstone of the field of intercultural learning; (c) present a conceptual framework for developing critical empathy; and (d) discuss application to higher education.

Background

Empathy involves recognizing and understanding how affective experiences are culturally grounded, and it is considered an essential capstone experience for university students (AACU, 2020; Zhu, 2011). The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) defined empathy as the ability to make meaning of intercultural experiences from one’s own and at least one other worldview and the capacity to act in a supportive way that acknowledges the emotional experiences of a cultural group different from one’s own (AACU, 2020). Empathy leads to greater self and other awareness through a reflective process of comparing the other person’s feelings to one’s own emotive experience and is a critical component of effective listening (Zhu, 2011). Barber (1984) included perspective-taking as a foundational tool for cultivating empathy. However, one obstacle to perspective-taking is the human tendency to judge based on the primary cultural lens through which one was socialized (Fantini, 2020).