Investigating Adult Higher Education's Promise: Teaching for Empathy
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Black Stetter, Robin
- Graduate Program:
- Lifelong Learning and Adult Education (DED)
- Degree:
- Doctor of Education
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- November 01, 2024
- Committee Members:
- Craig Campbell, Major Field Member
Mark Brennan, Outside Unit & Field Member
John Holst, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Rebecca Tarlau, Major Field Member
Heather Toomey Zimmerman, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- empathy
adult higher education faculty
institutional ethnography
critical adult education
humanization
economic development model of education
human development model of education
civil society
empathic learning outcomes - Abstract:
- This study presents results from an institutional ethnographic case study with adult higher education faculty as standpoint informants to explore their understanding of empathy as a beginning point in investigating empathy’s potential to be taught in the formal context of higher education. The study began with a review of institutional articulations of empathy at a local site (small technical college). It centered on interviews with standpoint informants who were adult higher education teaching faculty members. If empathy is a capacity for being learned and essential to humanization, a lack of institutional language articulating empathy or expectations for faculty teaching empathy limits its potential. Faculty participants at the local site of the study did not identify empathy as an expected learning outcome but did identify that it may happen as a byproduct. The institution coordinated their work with explicit expectations around required student outcomes. A key finding in the study acknowledged that teachers are not inherently empathic and that to cultivate empathy, it is essential to recognize adult higher education faculty members as adult learners, too. Data analysis also led to identifying ruling relations surrounding the work faculty members do. Within this local site, recognizing the role of the institution in supporting faculty agency and avoiding barriers to empathy serve as critical steps in identifying how to move forward in achieving empathy’s potential in adult higher education.