The Role of Empathy and Social Perspective-Taking in the Implementation of State Reform Policies

• In Event: Can't We All Get Along? Conflicting Perspectives, Racial Politics, and the "Human Side of Reform"

Abstract

Scholars have explored potential reasons for the limited successes of reform policies, but few have attended to the significance of the social and emotional aspects of policy implementation. This exploratory study seeks to understand the role of empathy and social perspective taking (SPT) among state leaders, district leaders, principals, and teachers, and the impact of empathy and SPT taking on their perceptions of recent reforms.

Research has demonstrated that reform policies have met limited success because of the way in which on the ground actors mediate external demands (Coburn, 2004; Hill, 2001; Spillane, 2000; Spillane, Reiser, & Reimer, 2002) and a lack of educator buy-in (Terhart, 2013). Given that education is a “fundamentally social enterprise” (Gehlbach, 2010, p. 349), we theorize that the social and emotional processes involved in policy implementation also play a significant role in determining the success of reforms. Empathy and SPT have been shown to facilitate conflict resolution (Gehlbach, 2004; Gehlbach et al., 2015; King et al., 2014), threat regulation and cooperation (Williams, 2007), and decreased stereotyping (Galinsky & Ku, 2004; Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000). Therefore, we hypothesize that empathy and SPT could help policy leaders and educators find common ground, and that the absence of these qualities is one reason for the gaps between policy and practice.

This paper draws on an interview study in one state of a “vertical slice” of 40 respondents at the state, district, principal, and teacher levels. We focused on two policies—teacher evaluation and Response to Intervention—that were implanted across these various levels of the system. We interviewed respondents both about their views of these policies and how they thought others in the system understood them. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and small focus groups. All interviews were transcribed and coded using grounded theory (Charmaz, 2000).

Initial findings reveal that state and district leaders strive to take on the perspective of educators, yet they also report spending little time with educators and have few relationships with teachers, principals and students. Teachers and principals, for their part, perceive that district and state officials are highly distant from their work and have little understanding and feel for schools. Policymakers at both state and district levels tended to see themselves as well-intentioned builders of good systems, whereas teachers and sometimes principals described them in much more Machiavellian terms. When asked to think about how teachers, principals, and district leaders have felt about recent policy changes, nearly all state-level participants estimated that they felt overwhelmed, frustrated, and confused. Preliminary conversations with teachers have suggested that they have less of an understanding of the demands that central office staff and state officials face in their roles.

This research highlights a need to develop a more nuanced understanding of the role of empathy and SPT in the implementation process and to design interventions to support perspective taking efforts. This research also has implications for the use of stereotypes across organizational layers and the types of interaction and communication necessary to build positive relationships.

Authors

• Renee Rinehart

• Jal David Mehta, Harvard University