The Utility of Empathy for White Female Teachers' Culturally Responsive Interactions with Black Male Students.

Abstract

Teachers aiming to become culturally responsive must be concerned with negotiating professional interactions that produce favorable outcomes for the culturally diverse students under their charge. Very few studies offer empirical evidence of empathy’s utility in the culturally responsive classroom, especially when the teacher is culturally different from his or her students. This study is an examination of empathy’s benefit for improving the student-teacher interactions of four White female educators and a group of their Black male students. Findings suggest that empathy helps: a) facilitate teachers ’ instructional flexibility and risk-taking; b) establish trusting student-teacher relationships; and c) support teacher’s ability to intervene proactively to ensure students meet high academic expectations. The nature, importance, and usefulness of empathy for helping teachers maintain interactions with youth that produces evidence of cultural responsiveness are discussed.

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