The influencing factors and improvement strategies of adolescents' empathy ability——Data analysis based on 2019OECD-SSES China

• In Event: Educational practices and studies on youths during Covid times

Proposal

The influencing factors and improvement strategies of adolescents' empathy ability
——Data analysis based on 2019OECD-SSES China

Xu Xun, Pan Shimei, Han Xiao

Abstract:Based on the data of Suzhou, China, in the 2019OECD Social and Emotional Competence Assessment of adolescents, this study analyzed the status quo and influencing factors of adolescents' empathy ability, and explored the cultivation of adolescents' empathy ability from the perspective of family, school and community cooperation.
Key words: empathy;adolescents;education;family;improvement

Introduction
Empathy originates from the German word "einfuhlung", which was first proposed by The German philosopher Robert Vische in 1873. It is used to indicate a phenomenon in which people actively project their true mental feelings onto the things they see. It is used to indicate a phenomenon in which people actively project their true inner feelings onto the things they see. In 1909, psychologist Edward Titchener first replaced "Einfuhlung" with the English word "empathy" and redefined it as: "A process of humanizing the object, of feeling ourselves inside something else (Duan CM,Hill CE, 1996). Since then, empathy has been paid more and more attention by psychology, sociology and education circles.
Empathy was conceptualised as the ability to emotionally share another person’s feelings or emotions (Affective Empathy) and/or the ability to understand another person’s emotional state (Davis, 1994; Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006).Moral principles related to empathy, such as care, respect, compassion, fairness, etc., are crucial for social improvement (Wagaman, 2011).Education needs to strengthen the cultivation of adolescents' empathy and promote the increase of social well-being (Da Silva, Sanson, Smart, &Toumbourou, 2004).Adolescence is an important period for developing social empathy and becoming responsible citizens of society (Hartup, 1996; Novak & Pelaez, 2004). 
Theories on empathy development have stressed the role of socialization in general and the role of parental support in particular（M Miklikowska，B Duriez，B Soenens,2011）.  humans can be educated in empathic ability and that in this way people can become more human and caring（Daniel Keeran,2014）. Social empathy provides a framework for more effective social policies to address inequality and support social and economic justice for all. Communities can play a positive role in enhancing social empathy（Segal，Elizabeth,2011）.Besides social roles, emotion awareness is an important factor for adaptive empathic reactions（Carolien Rieffe,Marina Camodeca,2016）.Although adolescence is recognised as a key period for prosocial development, knowledge about the factors that facilitate the development of empathy and prosocial responding among adolescents is limited（Galway,2018）.The Report on the Moral Development of Chinese Children (2017) points out that most children have clear feelings of care, and the overall differences are significant in age, gender, ethnic, life satisfaction, regional, family life and urban and rural differences (Sun Caiping, 2018).

Methods
This study uses structural equation model (SEM) to find out the main factors affecting the development of adolescents' empathy ability from three aspects of family, school and community, and puts forward some suggestions for improvement.
Data
The OECD study on adolescent social emotional competence draws on the "Big Five Model" to construct an assessment framework from five dimensions: task competence (conscientiousness), emotional regulation (emotional stability), cooperative competence (agreeableness), openness (openness) and communication competence (extroversion). Among them, empathy ability is an important sub-dimension of collaboration ability. The Chinese sample covers all primary and secondary schools in six districts and four county-level cities under the jurisdiction of Suzhou city, using a two-stage stratified cluster sampling method. The first is school sampling, with 76 schools out of 387 primary and integrated schools for all 10-year-olds and 75 schools out of 88 secondary and vocational schools. The second step is student sampling. According to the teacher-student association table provided by the sample schools, 50 students are randomly selected from the school-age students of each sample school. After that, 3800 subjects were selected from the 10-year-old group and 3750 subjects from the 15-year-old group, with a total sample size of 7550. At the same time of the student survey, another 7136 parents, 3723 teachers and 151 principals filled in the questionnaire for parents, teachers and principals respectively.

Author

• Xu Xun, Faculty of Education, East China Normal University