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Teacher Education and the Enduring Significance of “False Empathy”

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Abstract

The concept “False Empathy” posited by critical race theory luminary Richard Delgado (Calif Law Rev 84(1):61–100, 1996) easily obscures White teacher’s good intentions to be effective educators of racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students. It is argued here that critical race theory is useful for isolating and explaining how race and racism intersect the teaching and learning process. Thus, equipping White teacher candidates with the requisite skills needed to become even more aware of perspectives and behaviors reflective of false empathy. This paper explores how practicing White female teachers’ conceptions and expressions of empathy in two separate studies suggest evidence of false empathy. Findings demonstrate that false empathy may show up in three phases of classroom interaction: pre-contact, contact, and post-contact. Implications and recommendations for teacher preparation are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The conceptual framework of false empathy constructed for use in this paper flows out of interpretation of Delgado’s (1996) work and the application of false empathy in O'Brien (2003) work. The authors then draw on literature in the field of education to further ground the conceptual framework in relevant extant literature.

  2. The authors chose to provide abbreviated descriptions of studies one and two to save room in this paper and to focus more on outlining the methodological approach and procedure to complete the secondary analysis of qualitative data (Heaton 2008). Readers should refer to the citations Warren (2013b, 2014) for a more nuanced discussion of each study’s research questions and design.

  3. See #2

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Teacher Education, College of Education, Michigan State University, Erickson Hall, 620 Farm Lane, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Chezare A. Warren

  2. Masters of Public Administration Department, University of Utah, 260 S. Central Campus Drive, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    Bryan K. Hotchkins

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Correspondence to Chezare A. Warren.

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Warren, C.A., Hotchkins, B.K. Teacher Education and the Enduring Significance of “False Empathy”. Urban Rev 47, 266–292 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-014-0292-7

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