With the recent controversies over immigration, diversity and multiculturalism, a call for empathy is often heard. The ability to understand the feelings of another and to express that understanding is vital in many day-to-day encounters and the importance of empathy’s role in institutional encounters cannot be underestimated.
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Empathy and Diversity (by Jacqueline Peters)
The more a teacher knows about a student, the more equipped [they are] to organize an instructional program that caters directly [the student’s] social and intellectual needs (Warren, 2014).
My doctoral thesis examines empathy in social institutions, specifically medical institutions. One of my chapters will be on race and empathy. Recent events both here and in the US have got me thinking about diversity (or lack thereof) and empathy (or lack thereof). My questions here are on where empathy fits into a discussion on diversity, and on what, if any, effect empathy has on the creation of, or dealings with, diversity. To this end, and to bring to a close my blog entries for this academic year, I’d like to talk about how empathy affects diversity in the classroom.
Continue readingThe Colour of Empathy (by Jacqueline Peters)
Jacqueline Peters received an Honours BA in Linguistics from Concordia University, a MA in Linguistics from the University of Toronto and is a Doctoral Candidate in Linguistics at York University. Her doctoral dissertation, “Feeling Heard”: The Discourse of Empathy in Medical Interactions, is a qualitative study on Empathy in Medical Interactions. Jacqueline’s research has been funded by a Master’s SSHRC and a Doctoral SSHRC.
Her publications are “Black English in Toronto”: A New Dialect? (Co-authored with Laura Baxter) Conference Proceedings of Methods in Dialectology 14. 201, and ““(Be)coming Jamaican”: (Re)Constructing an Ethno-Cultural Identity.” In Identity through a Language Lens. Kamila Ciepiela (ed). Lodz Studies in Language (23). Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien: Peter Lang Publishing House. 2011. Pgs.109-118.
Jacqueline has previously examined identity construction of non-European immigrants living in Montreal and young people of Caribbean descent in Toronto, and has presented her work at numerous international linguistic conferences on linguistic variation, ethnic identity, and medical interaction. Her research interests include empathy, ethnic identity. intercultural communication, narrative analysis and discourse analysis.
