Dialogue Across Difference: Practice, Theory, and Research on Intergroup Dialogue

6. Empathy in Intergroup Dialogues

chAPTER 6 Empathy in Intergroup Dialogues In this chapter, we focus on empathy because it is such a vital component of intergroup relations. Empathy is viewed by many as the foundation of social life (see the discussion of empathy in chapter 3), and has always been an important goal of intergroup dialogue (IGD). As discussed in chapters 3 and 5, many studies have shown that empathy is linked to desirable outcomes such as decreased prejudice, fear, and anger toward out-groups, as well as increased intergroup contact and positive emotions toward out-groups (Pettigrew and Troop 2008, 2011; Stephan and Finlay 1999). In chapter 5, our survey data demonstrated that intergroup dialogues increased empathy. As predicted in the theoretical framework, these data also showed that empathy was fostered by both the communication processes and psychological processes, which were fostered by the pedagogical features of the dialogues. In this chapter, we take a mixed-methods approach to examining empathy in the interviews and the students’ final papers to understand in a more nuanced way how students experienced and expressed empathy in IGD. Interview material is used in all examples of empathy presented in this chapter; material from the final papers is sometimes used to supplement how a particular student experienced empathy. Empathy occurs in dialogues when individuals respond to the experiences of members of other social groups by trying to understand their perspectives (cognitive empathy) or by feeling what they feel or responding emotionally EMPATHY IN INTERGROUP DIALOGUE 181 to their experiences (emotional intergroup empathy). In our quantitative analyses in chapter 5, we used a survey measure that focused on emotional empathy. In this chapter, we also include cognitive empathy. Most of the examples in this chapter represent empathy being expressed across race-ethnicity in the race-ethnicity dialogues or across gender in the gender dialogues. A few examples reflect empathy for dialogue members within a student’s racialethnic or gender identity group (that is, intragroup empathy). However, because these few instances of intragroup empathy arose in an intergroup context , we include them in the analysis. In this chapter, we first describe the mixed-methods approach used in analyzing the qualitative materials. This approach began with qualitative analysts , later included quantitative analysts, and then involved both of them in developing the framework presented in this chapter. Both teams included researchers and practitioners. QuAlITATIvE APPRoAch IN A MIXED METhoDs sTuDy In this chapter, we use data from the interviews as the primary source to explore empathy. We also use the final papers to supplement what we learned from the interviews. Both data sources are retrospective. They capture how the students made sense of their experiences in the dialogues in somewhat different ways. The interviews were designed to elicit spontaneous responses on pedagogical elements and communicative exchanges in the dialogues. The papers provide more reflective responses that capture how the students evaluated their curricular readings, the dialogue experience over the arc of the course, and their own learning. In all the examples, we use pseudonyms. We describe in detail two phases of coding and analyzing these data, first by the qualitative research team and then by both the qualitative and quantitative teams working together. We do this because it is rare for mixed methods to be used to the extent involved in this analysis of empathy. Phase I. Coding and Initial Analysis of Empathy in the Interviews and Papers To reduce the number of transcripts, the qualitative team selected a subset of dialogues on the basis of impact scores. Impact was determined by a score given by the interview coders at the end of each interview. These scores ranged on a seven-point scale from negative impact, representing the coder’s 182 DIALOGUE ACROSS DIFFERENCE evaluation of the student having less insight and understanding than before taking the course, to very high positive impact based on the student using terms such as “a transformational experience” or having had impressive new insights about themselves and others. The individual scores were averaged to give each dialogue a group score. To have a range of dialogues represented in the subset, the two highest scoring groups from the race and the gender dialogues were selected, along with the lowest scoring group and one moderate impact group from each type of dialogue. This chapter presents excerpts from the interviews used in our analyses of those four race and four gender dialogues. The findings from this smaller...