Cultural Equivalence Validation of the Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy

Background and Purpose:

The importance of instilling empathy within social work students for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIANs) cannot be underestimated. The injustices still faced by tribal nations heighten the need for social work outreach to AIANs. However, there are no valid and reliable measures available to assess empathy toward AIANs among social work students. The Scale of Ethnocultural Empathy (SEE) was designed to measure empathy for any ethnic-cultural group. The 31-item scale consists of four factors: empathic feeling and expression, empathic perspective taking, acceptance of cultural differences, and empathic awareness. The SEE has been validated internationally, and an adapted version was used with AIANs, though no information was provided about the scale adaptations. This highlights the importance of engaging in cultural equivalence research (CER) of the validity of the SEE for use with AIANs. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the cultural equivalence of the SEE for AIANs to determine if it is a viable evaluation tool.

Methods:

In alignment with CER, this study recruited an expert panel (N=8) of AIAN social work educators and practitioners. Study activities involved responding to a survey evaluating each SEE item regarding language clarity, appropriateness, difficulty, and relevance. Post survey the experts engaged in a video interview to verify and clarify their survey responses.

Results:

The participants were female (N=7) and male (n=1); faculty (n=7) and doctoral student (n=1) located across the United States with no two interviewees located in the same state. Surveys revealed that 20 of the 31 items met the threshold for language clarity, appropriateness, difficulty, and relevance utilizing a robust standard of a supermajority (6 out of 8 experts). The factor empathic awareness retained 3/4 items; acceptance of cultural differences retained 4/5 questions; empathic perspective taking kept 5/7 items; empathic feeling and expression retained 8/15. Four of the 20 items received full agreement across the expert committee. Prior to the endorsement of the 20 items as conceptually valid, qualitative comments were reviewed to gain further insight into the scale.

Qualitative findings revealed three major themes:1) Experience--lack of accurate knowledge and interactions with AIAN people, 2) Crusader--participant experiences with well-intentioned individuals who overstep with advocacy actions before understanding complex social situations, 3) Context—concern that responses to SEE items would change based on situation contexts. Additionally, three subthemes emerged that provide insight into empathy for AIANs: stereotypes cultural appropriation, and microaggressions.

Conclusions and Implications:

The findings reveal limitations for the use of the SEE with AIANs. Each participant expressed concern regarding many social work students lack knowledge and experience with AIAN, indicating this may lead SEE respondents to rely on stereotypes and actions that represent cultural appropriation. The possibility is that a higher score on empathy may in reality represent a source of racial stress and/or oppression. Further, cultural differences expressed within the context subtheme and final comments must be explored to determine the expectation for non-tribal social workers to culturally mirror empathy.