The Empathy Compass for addressing Societal Challenges in Education. A tool for higher education to stimulate, facilitate and assess empathic awareness in multistakeholder collaborations
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21556443 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wina Smeenk (0000-0001-9888-1712, University of Applied Sciences, corresponding author), Claudia Mayer (0000-0002-5563-1307, University of Applied Sciences), Eva James (University of Applied Sciences) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 2082-2100 |
| Publication date | 2025-11-17 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Higher Education Research & Development (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0729-4360 • E-ISSN: 1469-8366 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/07294360.2025.2510670 |
| OpenAlex | W4412017716 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 29 |
In the face of contemporary challenges, ranging from safety concerns to social and environmental issues, it becomes increasingly evident that conventional approaches often fall short. Higher education, as a catalyst for social progress and talent development, holds a unique position to foster mutual learning across sectors, disciplines, life-spheres and communities. By nurturing critical thinking and creativity, education can empower students to drive and take societal and environmental responsibility. Empathic co-design emerges as a crucial approach for navigating complexity and establishing change. Exposure to diverse perspectives encourages individuals, particularly students, to expand their empathy by challenging their preconceptions, fostering understanding, and promoting a deeper sense of interconnectedness with others. Recognizing the significance of empathy in educational co-design contexts and beyond, this paper introduces the Empathy Compass. Through two case studies on the societal impact of Ecstasy production and use, we demonstrate the Compass's utility in tracking students’ empathic awareness. The practice-oriented, three-dimensional tool highlights specific mindsets, activities and methodologies within each quadrant, its intersections and the ‘we-space’. The Empathy Compass emerges as a valuable tool for higher education, supporting the stimulation, facilitation and assessment of empathic awareness in multi-stakeholder collaborations
Compass · Empathy · Engineering ethics · Geography · Higher education · Medical education · Pedagogy · Political science · Embodied and Extended Cognition · Empathy and Medical Education · Engineering · Innovative Education and Learning Practices · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology
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Can social interaction constitute social cognition?
The Extended Mind
Co-design practice in higher education
Empathy and second-person methodology
Empathy≠sharing
The Cultural Politics of Emotion
Cross-border injection drug use and HIV and hepatitis C virus seropositivity among people who inject drugs in San Diego, California
Is empathy-induced helping due to self–other merging
Boundary Crossing and Boundary Objects
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |