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Social Empathy as a Framework for Teaching Social Justice Elizabeth A. Segal and M. Alex Wagaman

ABSTRACT Social work education stresses training students to understand oppressive structural barriers and promote social and economic justice. Social empa- thy, which is rooted in a deep understanding of those who are different from us through contextual understanding and macro perspective-taking, offers a framework for teaching social justice that addresses critiques of the profession, such as a partisan political perspective. To explore this potential, the study examined relationships between interpersonal empathy, social empathy, political affiliation, and policy positions on issues related to social and economic justice with a sample of social work students. Findings support the teaching of social empathy as a way to promote students’ understanding and advancement of social and economic justice.

ARTICLE HISTORY Accepted: July 2015

Visit the websites of schools of social work across the country, and it is likely that the mission of each school includes a commitment to social justice. Social justice is part of the mission of professional practice and educational standards for training social workers. It is promoted as one of social work’s core values. According to the National Association of Social Workers’ (2008) Code of Ethics, “Social workers promote social justice and social change with and on behalf of clients” (p. 1) with the principle that clients are individuals, families, groups, organizations and communities. Social work education accreditation standards stress that social work programs must train students to be able to identify and understand oppressive structural barriers and promote social, political and economic justice, as outlined in the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (2015). Although most schools of social work and both major social work organizations in the United States promote social justice, the link between this ideology and practice is complicated and at times has been rather contentious. This article explores a framework for teaching social workers social justice from a perspective that transcends the struggles historically identified with promoting such an orientation.

What is social justice?

According to the Social Work Dictionary, social justice is an “ideal condition in which all members of a society have the same basic rights, protection, opportunities, obligations, and social benefits” (Barker, 2003, pp. 404–405). This definition places social justice as an ideology more than an action. A more general definition describes social justice as a “level of fairness that exists in society, and the goal of achieving that fairness” (Segal, 2016), which moves toward taking action to build a just society. Payne (2014) describes it as a value of social work and an action “to use economic intervention and provisions of social welfare to promote equality and social justice” (p. 22). With varying definitions that include an ideology and a direction for action, it is not surprising that social justice is referred to in general ways. Longres and Scanlon (2001) surveyed researchers and research instructors at one major school of social work and found that faculty tended to use a very broad

CONTACT Elizabeth A. Segal [email protected] School of Social Work, Arizona State University, 411 N. Central Ave, Suite 800, Phoenix, AZ 85004-0689. Color versions of one or more of the figures for the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/uswe. © 2017 Council on Social Work Education

JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION 2017, VOL. 53, NO. 2, 201–211 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10437797.2016.1266980

definition of justice: “Definitions of justice included a concern for distribution as well as process and was defined economically, socio-politically, and culturally” (p. 461). Thus, social justice is an ideology and an approach for practice. Expecting social workers to employ social justice as a principle and as a form of intervention likely contributes to its complexity and concerns over teaching and implementing it in practice. Additional challenges in teaching social justice to social work students include finding sufficient support within educational systems for a social justice– oriented curriculum as well as adequate preparation in understanding what social justice is for those assigned to teach (Funge, 2011). The barriers of vague definitions and lack of support and prepara- tion are compounded by the reality that hits social workers in the field when practicing from a social justice perspective.

Concerns regarding social justice as a core value of social work practice

In a special issue of the British Journal of Social Work dedicated to social justice, Colton (2002) relates the conflictual relationship between social justice as an ideology and as a working practice: “The relationship between the two [social justice and social work] is decidedly uneasy, fraught with tension, contradiction and conflict at both the ideological, conceptual, and theoretical levels as well the levels of policy and practice” (p. 659). The tension reflects the role of social workers in promoting social justice by holding systems accountable while serving in controlling roles such as rationing services and enforcing rules on the part of those systems.

Change agents or agents of the system?

Social work practice includes a degree of tension between serving those who are vulnerable while maintaining systems that perpetuate those vulnerabilities. This is not a new contradiction. Porter R. Lee (1929), then president of the National Conference of Social Work, identified the conflict as between “cause and function”—the pull between the belief in changing entrenched evils that block human well-being (i.e., cause) to servicing those structures that are put in place to address human needs (i.e., function). The tension between the two was deep within the fledgling profession.

The New Deal era seemed to diminish the conflict with its emphasis on structural social welfare policies such as the Social Security Act and controls on economic inequality. But once the focus in social work returned to a more micro focus, the struggle to work with individuals and promote social change reemerged. In 1951 the National Council on Social Work Education attempted to address the concern over what exactly social work was and concluded there was not enough information to clearly articulate what functions should be considered professional social work (Brieland, 1977).

The conflict gained substantial attention during the 1980s and 1990s. Frumkin and O’Connor (1985) saw the profession “adrift” by losing its core identity with an “emphasis on the psychological functioning of clients, the administration and evaluation of such programs, and on the other hand the neglect of the person-in-situation focus” (p. 14). Specht and Courtney (1994) were more adamant about the loss of social work’s mission for social change. They argued that social work had “abandoned its mission” to deal with social problems and instead had embraced psychotherapy: “The popular psychotherapies have diverted social work from its original mission and vision of the perfectibility of society” (p. 27). Concern over taking political action to address social inequality was voiced by leading social work educators. Being aware of inequality was one thing, but “politics ordinarily is not the domain of professional practice” (Meyer, 1981, p. 74). Brieland (1990) summed up the conflict in practical terms: “Social workers’ relative passivity on large social issues is, no doubt, an accommodation to legal and political realities. Public employees consider themselves legally restricted from political action, and the private sector must maintain delicate relationships with funding sources” (p. 138).

The complicated nature of social justice and social work practice has continued to be debated in social work arenas. Pelton (2001) critiques the profession for what he sees as being an “accomplice to

202 E. A. SEGAL AND M. A. WAGAMAN

unjust systems” (p. 439) in working to help clients change while the situation of their lives is not addressed. Such complexity in the role of the profession puts social workers at risk for taking on a social control or coercive roles. A blatant case of such coercion was the social work support of internment of Japanese Americans during World War II (Park, 2008). This example reminds us of the detrimental conflict in our roles and the risk of losing sight of social justice. However, in recent years, the commitment to social justice as an ideology and as a practice has been reaffirmed. No other profession includes social justice as a central value, and that sets social work apart from other helping professions (Marsh, 2005). On the 50th anniversary of the NASW, the executive director reminded us that “social workers continue to advocate for social justice and provide necessary services for all citizens” (as cited in Marsh, 2005, p. 293). However, the duality of being social change agents while simultaneously being part of the current system is part of the challenge in teaching and practicing socially just social work.

Partisan politics or political action?

Criticism of the profession has included accusations that social work’s social justice orientation involves a partisan perspective. In 2007 a group called the National Association of Scholars (self- identified as a membership group committed to academic freedom) published a report that claimed to identify the liberal agenda behind social work education (National Association of Scholars, 2007). The report repeated the missions of the NASW, the CSWE and a selection of schools of social work that touted social justice, and based on those mission statements, the report argued that a liberal agenda was being forced on students. For instance, the group reported that “NASW’s emphasis on social justice, when applied to academic programming, runs counter to the spirit and the principles of good educational practice and normal scholarship” (p. 2) and “the discipline’s accrediting body, the CSWE, had among its protocols language about affirming ‘social justice ideals,’ which seemed to us to raise serious First Amendment issues, when applied to programs at public universities” (p. 4). Although the report was based solely on the group’s interpretation of mission statements, it clearly argued that social justice as a principle was the same as a liberal indoctrination. This outside group was interpreting the meaning of social justice as a prescription for advocacy of a liberal agenda, not as a philosophical principle.

Although such an outside interpretation of social justice as a form of advocacy for partisan politics may seem to be opposed to social work academics’ commitment to academic freedom and critical thinking, one need look no further than social workers who hold political office to see how this interpretation might be reinforced. At the time of the present study, according to the NASW (2013), on the national level two U.S. Senators and seven members of the House of Representatives were social workers, all of whom were Democrats. Also at the time of this study, at the state and local levels 188 elected office holders were social workers. Of those state and local officials who identified their party affiliation (typically school board members are unidentified by political party) 90% were Democrats, 6% were Republicans, and 3% were Independents. These public social workers projected a decided political affiliation with the Democratic Party. Research on social workers’ political ideology suggests that social workers tend to be liberal to moderate (Hodge, 2003) or display a liberal tendency on social issues more so than on economic issues (Rosenwald, 2006).

Partisan politics has been a critique of social work academics as well (Hodge, 2002), and there is some evidence to point in this direction. Gross and Fosse (2012) used extensive data to test several hypotheses about the view that college professors are liberal: “We found that professors are more liberal than other Americans because a higher proportion have advanced educational credentials, exhibit a disparity between their levels of education and income, have distinctive religious profiles, and express tolerance for controversial ideas” (p. 168). They went on to develop a theory based on their findings that occupational reputation draws in those with similar aspirations. In other words,

JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION 203

the perception of academics as liberals draws those with liberal attitudes toward the profession. They suggest this may be true of other professions, which would include social work.

Answering the question of whether partisan politics is a key part of social work education is complicated by a lack of research on social workers’ political orientation. Epstein (2011) shares his concern that there has been limited research on social workers’ political diversity, in spite of how relevant politics is to social policy. He recalls Galambos’s (2009) earlier lament that although we may talk about political diversity, we do very little research on it. The limited research there is suggests that political ideology among social workers is actually diverse (Rosenwald, 2006).

This raises an important question. To what extent is the social work value and practice of social justice linked to political identification for those who are drawn to the profession, particularly those who are drawn to the academy to teach social work? And does such political identification stand in the way of promoting social justice as a mission of the profession because it can be interpreted as having a political agenda? These questions can be addressed through conceptualizing a new frame- work for teaching and practicing social justice.

A framework for teaching social justice that is ideological and action based

One mechanism for promoting social justice in a manner that is nonpartisan is to use a social empathy framework. Social empathy is built on a foundation of interpersonal empathic abilities with two additional key components: (a) contextual understanding of structural barriers to social and economic opportunity and (b) the ability to apply macro perspective taking to understand the social and economic conditions of others (Segal, 2011; Segal, Wagerman, & Gerdes, 2012).

Interpersonal empathy is the ability to understand the behaviors of others and the meanings of those behaviors. This skill is important because empathy is the bond that connects people on individual levels (de Waal, 2009), facilitates social agreements (Pinker, 2010), and promotes demo- cratic decision making (Morrell, 2010). When people are different from us, that bond is difficult to make, so we need to have a broader understanding of their groups of origin. Social empathy takes into consideration those lived differences across cultures with historical insight that focuses on experiences of oppression and marginalization (Segal, 2011; 2014). Social empathy is well suited to teaching social justice because of the attention given to developing interpersonal empathy skills, teaching about historical patterns of discrimination and oppression, and helping people to learn about their sense of who they are in the context of the larger world. These are all tasks that are part of social work education. Social empathy as a conceptualization draws these parts of social work training together as a framework for practice that combines the ideology of social justice and the action of practice that is socially just.

Current study

This research study was designed to preliminarily examine the empirical relationship between social empathy and social justice, and to explore whether social empathy and social justice are linked to particular political party affiliations. Relationships between interpersonal empathy, social empathy, political affiliation, and policy positions on issues related to social and economic justice were examined. It was hypothesized that (a) social empathy is related to policy positions that reflect social and economic justice, (b) interpersonal empathy is not related to these policy positions, (c) political affiliation is not related to social empathy, and (d) social empathy would be a significant predictor of policy positions over and above that of political affiliation. Understanding these potential relationships will help to develop strategies to teach social justice based on a social empathy framework.

204 E. A. SEGAL AND M. A. WAGAMAN

Methods

Instructors teaching social welfare policy courses at the bachelor’s and master’s level at an urban southwestern university were asked to invite their students to participate in the study during the fall semester of 2013. A total of eight classes participated based on the willingness of the instructor to (a) announce the study in class or via e-mail and (b) share their students’ e-mail addresses for distribution of the study information and for linking to the online survey. Of the participating classes, seven were in person and one was online. During the third week of the semester, students received an e-mail outlining the purpose of the study, their rights as research participants, and the timeline for the online survey. The following week, students received the survey link from Qualtrics (2014), an online survey software system, through which they could choose to anonymously participate. Instructors were not able to determine whether students had selected to participate in the study. Students had 1 week to complete the online survey, during which time they received one reminder via e-mail. Based on the e-mail addresses received from instructors, a total of 326 students were invited to participate.

Measures

The survey included demographic items including age, gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic class of family of origin, and year in college. Students were asked to place themselves on a seven-point, ordinal measure of political affiliation that included strong Democrat, Democrat, lean towards Democrat, Independent, lean towards Republican, Republican and strong Republican. Students were also asked to place their father and mother on this same scale with an option to respond that this information was either unknown or not applicable. The scale was developed based on commonly used scales by a leading public opinion research group (see Pew Research Center, 2012, 2015).

The survey also included the Social Empathy Index (SEI) of 40 items, a measure that includes the Empathy Assessment Index (EAI) and items to assess the two additional components of social empathy. The SEI has been previously used with populations of university students with statis- tically significant mean scores correlation (.74, p < .05) (Segal, Wagaman, & Gerdes, 2012). In total, the EAI has 22 items that measure affective response (five items), emotion regulation (four items), affective mentalizing (four items), perspective taking (five items), and self-other awareness (four items). The other 18 items measure contextual understanding of systemic barriers (nine items) and macro perspective taking (nine items). The total score assesses social empathy as a whole. Each item is rated on a six-point scale from 1 (never) to 6 (always) and asks respondents to select the option that most closely reflects their feelings. Examples of items include, “I can tell the difference between my friend’s feeling and my own” (self-other awareness), “When I am upset or unhappy, I get over it quickly” (emotion regulation), “I can best understand people who are different from me by learning from them directly” (macro perspective taking), and “I believe people born into poverty have more barriers to achieving economic well-being than people who were not born into poverty” (contextual understanding). Items were reverse scored as appropriate and calculated for total scores of social empathy.

Finally, items assessing self-rated positions on nine policy issues related to social and economic justice on a four-point scale (1 = completely agree, 4 = completely disagree) were included on the survey. These items included such statements as, “The government should help more needy people even if it means going deeper in debt” and “The growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens traditional American customs and values.” These items were reverse scored as appropriate so that higher scores were equated with more socially and economically just positions on each political view. This scoring supported the calculation of a scale score for overall political views supporting a social and economic justice orientation, which is described in more detail later. The positioning of the items in terms of support for social justice or not were based on the orientation of

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policy positions used in public opinion research (Pew Research Center, 2012). The rationale for basing the policy positions scale, as well as the political affiliation scale, on public opinion research was that the classifications and items reflected relevant terms that had been thoroughly vetted throughout years of use.

Sample

Of the 326 students who were invited to participate in the study, 127 completed the online survey for a participation rate of 38.9%. The sample was predominantly female (n = 107) and White (n = 66). Most of the students identified as social work majors (n = 123) with 3 students identifying as bachelor’s-level social welfare minors and one master’s level student identifying as a dual degree student (MSW and master of public administration). There were more undergraduate participants (n = 79) than graduate (n = 48). Among the undergraduate students, the majority (n = 76) identified as seniors, compared to juniors (n = 3). All the graduate-level students identified as being in their foundation year of the MSW program.

Students ranged in age from 18 to 61 years old with a mean age of 30.1, and reported diversity in terms of the economic class of their family of origin. The distribution for political affiliation of mother and father leaned in the Democrat direction but had more distribution across the answer options than those self-reported by the students. A number of students reported not knowing the political affiliation of either their mother (n = 35) or father (n = 48). See Table 1 for a summary of sample demographics.

Results

Dependent variable

Participants responded individually to each of the nine items that assessed their political views on various issues related to social and economic justice. Table 2 summarizes the descriptive statistics for each of these items. As previously described, prior to calculating scale scores, items were reverse scored as appropriate so that higher scores were associated with views that are perceived as being more socially and economically just. The dependent variable, or the extent to which one reported political views that support social and economic justice, included the sum of responses for each of the nine items. The scale score (∞=.65) had a range of 19–35 (9–36), mean of 28.04, and standard deviation of 3.45.

Table 1. Summary of sample demographics.

Racial/Ethnic Identity (n = 127) Economic Class of Family of Origin (n = 124)

African American 8 (6.3%) Poor 16 (12.9%) American Indian 4 (3.1%) Working class 49 (39.5%) Asian 1 (0.8%) Middle class 37 (29.8%) White/Caucasian 66 (52%) Upper middle class 22 (17.8%) Latino/Latina 34 (26.8%) Wealthy 0 (0%) Multiracial 11 (8.7%) Other 3 (2.3%)

Political Affiliation of Self (n = 126) Political Affiliation of Mother (n = 126) Political Affiliation of Father (n = 127)

Strong Democrat 16 (12.7%) Strong Democrat 10 (7.9%) Strong Democrat 7 (5.5%) Democrat 29 (23%) Democrat 33 (26.2%) Democrat 25 (19.7%) Lean toward Democrat 30 (23.8%) Lean toward Democrat 6 (4.8%) Lean toward Democrat 4 (3.1%) Independent 37 (29.4%) Independent 12 (9.5%) Independent 7 (5.5%) Lean toward Republican 12 (9.5%) Lean toward Republican 9 (7.1%) Lean toward Republican 5 (3.9%) Republican 2 (1.6%) Republican 11 (8.7%) Republican 14 (11%) Strong Republican 0 (0%) Strong Republican 10 (7.9%) Strong Republican 17 (13.4%)

Don’t know 35 (27.9%) Don’t know 48 (37.8%)

206 E. A. SEGAL AND M. A. WAGAMAN

Independent variables

In response to the item on personal political affiliation, as shown in Table 1, students ranged from “strong Democrat” (n = 16) to “Republican” (n = 2) with no participants identifying as a “strong Republican.” Although there was distribution across six of the seven answer options, representation was skewed in the direction of the Democratic side of the scale (n = 75) as compared to Independent (n = 37) or Republican (n = 14).

The 22 interpersonal empathy items for all four subscales were summed to create a scale score (∞ = .86) with a range of 62–123 (22–132). The mean for the scale score in this sample was 102 with a standard deviation of 10.79.

The 18 social empathy items for both subscales, contextual understanding of systemic barriers and macro perspective-taking, were summed to create a scale score (∞ = .88) with a positively skewed range of 63–108 (18–108) to be expected with a self-report instrument, particularly given the makeup of the sample. The mean of the scale was 87.42 with a standard deviation of 10.76.

Bivariate analysis

Bivariate correlations indicated significant relationships between policy views related to social and eco- nomic justice and political affiliation (r = –.41, p < .01), interpersonal empathy and social empathy (r = .55, p < .01), and policy views and social empathy (r = .44, p < .01). No significant relationships existed between interpersonal or social empathy and political affiliation. In addition, there was no significant relationship found between interpersonal empathy and political views related to social and economic justice.

Multivariate analysis

In this next step of the analysis, interpersonal empathy was not included. To test the predictive value of social empathy on policy positions over and above that of political affiliation, a multiple regression analysis was conducted with social and economic justice–oriented policy positions as the dependent variable, and political affiliation and social empathy as independent variables. In the final model, 35% of the variance in policy positions was explained (R2 = .36, adjusted R2 = .35, F = 31.73 (2, 109), p < .01). Political affiliation (∞ = −0.41, t(109) = −5.48, p < .01) and social empathy (∞ = .42, t(109) = 5.59, p < .01) significantly contributed to the model individually. Social empathy contributed an additional 22% of the variance (sr = .47) over and above that of political affiliation. See Table 3 for a summary of the model results.

Table 2. Items measuring political views related to social and economic justice.

Items Measuring Social and Economic Justice Political Views N Sample mean (1 = completely agree to 4 =

completely disagree) SD

There need to be stricter laws and regulations to protect the environment.a

120 1.74 0.65

The government should help more needy people even if it means going deeper in debt.a

121 2.3 0.75

The growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens traditional American customs and values.

121 3.27 0.69

Gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry legally.a 119 1.39 0.83 The government needs to do more to make health care affordable and accessible.a

120 1.33 0.55

Government regulation of business usually does more harm than good. 119 2.56 0.71 Abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. 119 3.12 1.02 Labor unions are necessary to protect the working person.a 121 1.96 0.61 Poor people have become too dependent on government assistance programs.

120 2.78 0.82

Note. aThese items were reverse scored for the final analysis. Means presented in table are prior to reverse scoring.

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Discussion

This study was intended to explore the relationships between political views related to social and economic justice, political party affiliation, and interpersonal and social empathy. As expected, the findings revealed an important relationship between political affiliation and political views. Not surprisingly, political affiliation was a significant predictor of political views on issues of social and economic justice, with those identifying on the more Republican end of the political spectrum being associated with less liberal views related to issues of social and economic justice. However, as hypothe- sized, social empathy also emerged as a significant predictor of political views. In fact, in the model with political affiliation and social empathy as predictors of political views, social empathy emerged as a significant predictor over and above political affiliation. The strength of social empathy as a predictor of political views suggests that social empathy may provide a framework for teaching social justice that is separate and distinct from political party affiliation. This is emphasized by the lack of a significant correlation between social empathy and political affiliation, demonstrating their distinction.

A closer look at the two components of social empathy might help to explain the strength of social empathy as a tool for teaching social justice separate from political affiliation. Both components, contextual understanding of systemic barriers and macro perspective taking, are ways of understanding larger social issues using fair-minded skills of critical thinking. Asking students to research environmental and historical contexts is not politically laden and are already key aspects of social work education (i.e., human behavior in the social environment). Role playing, whichmacro perspective taking calls for on a social system scale, is a regular part of social work education. Thus, both components of social empathy are well suited to social work education and are already in place in many parts of the curriculum.

Another important aspect of the results of this study is the relationship between interpersonal empathy and social empathy. Interpersonal empathy is a practice skill emphasized in social work education. This study highlights its distinction from social empathy, which appears from these findings to be important to building macro-level empathy, particularly as it relates to policy views. If interpersonal empathy has no significant correlation with political views related to social and economic justice, although it may be a critical part of individual-level practice, it may not be enough to build macro-level understanding. That means that our empathy-building efforts in social work education need to stress interpersonal empathy and social empathy. Such a curricular approach would mean integrating ways to teach all the elements of interpersonal and social empathy, with a particular emphasis on contextual understanding of systemic barriers and macro perspective taking as tools to promote social justice.

Limitations

Given that this study is preliminary empirical work, there are several important limitations that should be acknowledged in consideration of the findings. First, it is not known whether the participants who responded to the online survey were qualitatively different from those who were in the recruitment pool but did not respond. The response rate was just under 40%, but this is not surprising given that there was no incentive to participate, and the primary communication about the study was through individual course instructors. However, it should be acknowledged that the

Table 3. Multiple regression analyses predicting political views related to social and economic justice (N = 111).

B

Intercept 19.88 Political affiliation −1.12* (−0.41) Social empathy 0.13* (.42) Adjusted R2 0.35* F 31.73 (2, 109)

Note. *p < .01.

208 E. A. SEGAL AND M. A. WAGAMAN

responses of those who chose not to participate in the study may have been substantially different from those who did choose to participate. Future studies should consider efforts to increase participation or to identify demographic characteristics of the sample pool for comparison.

These data are cross-sectional, and as such limit our ability to understand time ordering or any causal relationship between the variables. In addition, the data are context specific in that they were collected from one university in a nonrandom fashion. Therefore, the participants’ responses are not representative of social work students beyond the sample itself. The convenience-based sampling method also violates the assumptions for the inferential analytic strategy, thereby limiting our ability to assert anything other than suggestions and speculations from the results.

Finally, efforts to measure something as contextually bound as political views may create challenges related to comparisons over time and across geographic locations. For example, during the time of data collection, the marriage equality movement and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010) were both prominent aspects of the political landscape, which may have had an impact on the responses. Similarly, immigration policy was an important issue nationally but particularly in the geographic area (southwestern U.S.) where the data were collected. Responses to this item may have varied in other parts of the nation. With regard to the self-report nature of the political affiliation and political views items, there has been discussion in the literature about whether social work students feel comfortable expressing or identifying themselves in what may be perceived as a minority position. Similarly, social work students may be affected by social desirability and less likely to respond to items in ways that may be perceived as less empathic or compassionate. We feel that the online, anonymous nature of the data collection process was an important forum for maximizing honesty in responses but acknowledge that self-report has a risk for response bias.

Implications

The findings from this study support further exploration of teaching of social empathy as a way to promote students’ understanding and advancement of social and economic justice, regardless of political affiliation. Figure 1 provides a schematic of the relationship.

Value to

promote social

justice

Intervention

Empathic and

social justice

orientation

Mission of schools of

social work

Mission of profession

Mission of accrediting

organization

Build Social Empathy

Knowledge of why

and how people are

marginalized and

oppressed

Sense of self in the

larger context of

the world

Taking action that

reflects

interpersonal

empathy with

knowledge of

oppression and

understanding of

self contextually

Empowerment of

self and facilitating

empowerment of

others

Contextual

understanding

Macro

perspective-

taking

HOW?

Through study of historical

patterns of discrimination

and oppression

HOW?

Use of role plays

Conduct policy analyses

Develop cultural

competency and humility

Figure 1. Framework for teaching: Relationship between social empathy and social justice.

JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION 209

The importance of social justice as an ideological foundation for social work is reflected in the professional missions of the NASW, the CSWE, and countless schools of social work. One way to infuse a social justice framework in our teaching is through building social empathy. We suggest doing so by highlighting the two components of social empathy in our teaching practice.

Teaching greater contextual understanding of systemic barriers to social justice can be achieved through infusing the study of historical patterns of discrimination and oppression. Coupling this understanding of historical context with macro perspective taking, which can be achieved through experiential opportunities that emphasize the ability to put one’s own and others’ experiences into a systemic context, can have the effect of giving students greater insight into the conditions and lived realities of their own and other identity groups. Such approaches to teaching social justice are further enhanced by school environments in which students can learn from and teach one another. Such environments do not just happen in schools of social work. They must be intentionally built through efforts to increase the lived and identity-based diversity among students, faculty and staff that reflects the world in which our students will be practicing. Such efforts require an institutional commitment and deep reflection on the reasons why diversity is not currently reflected. Within a diverse learning context, these approaches, which constitute social empathy, can equip social workers to help build a society in which all members have the same basic rights, protection, opportunities, obligations, and social benefits, which is the social work definition of social justice (Barker, 2003). By doing so, we are better able to demonstrate that we are not promoting a particular political agenda; rather, we are upholding our professional mission by building a more socially and economically just world.

Notes on contributor

Elizabeth A. Segal is professor at Arizona State University. M. Alex Wagaman is assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

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  • Abstract
    • What is social justice?
    • Concerns regarding social justice as a core value of social work practice
    • Change agents or agents of the system?
    • Partisan politics or political action?
    • A framework for teaching social justice that is ideological and action based
  • Current study
  • Methods
    • Measures
    • Sample
  • Results
    • Dependent variable
    • Independent variables
    • Bivariate analysis
    • Multivariate analysis
  • Discussion
  • Limitations
  • Implications
  • Notes on contributor
  • References