Empathy and the Concept of Universal Diverse Orientation
Empathy and the Concept of Universal Diverse Orientation
Introduction
Empathy is the capability to feel and show concern for other people’s negative situations that elicits a desire to assist the involved people. It involves an experience of emotions which are similar to the affected person/s and being in full knowledge of whatever the involved individual/s may be feeling or thinking to an extent that the line between self and the other is blurred. In order to exercise empathy and individual needs to have multicultural competence. This entails being aware and accepting both differences and similarities among other people that may be different from you as a person. This is especially vital in people dealing with people from diverse backgrounds. This is rooted in the concept of universal diverse orientation: it states that, though populations share common, universal experiences (e.g. basic biological functions); they also have differences based on culture. The example outline below will serve to portray how empathy as a virtue may fail to be exercised in work places and how the failure comes about (Constantine & Yeh, 2001).
A fellow workmate-a paraprofessional working with the New York City Department of Education-was falsely alleged to have been violating the conduct codes and ethics of the education department. The allegations were presented before the administration by a fellow teacher whom they had been working together in the same class. The codes of the department require that all cellular phones and pagers should be turned of when within the institution so as to minimize disruptions in the learning process. This is meant to foster the policy of “Children first”. Firstly, the accused teacher had been frequently going out of the room because of a personal medical condition that required her to frequently visit the lavatories, and as such the situation was out of her control.
Luckily, she was able to visit her doctor after the allegations and the doctor was able to prove her condition. She later followed up the case with her UFT union, whose administrators scheduled a meeting with the schools administrator in order to explain her condition. The union defended her case and avoided her expulsion from the school. The code and ethics about conduct laid out by the department are seemingly harsh considering that some people like the accused teacher have special needs children who may require emergency attention at any time. Therefore, it would only be fair if they were allowed to have their pagers or cell phones on incase of any emergencies. The above outlined scenario shows a clear lack of the concept of universal diverse orientation-that recognizes that people are different and may have special needs, and thus; cannot be treated as all other people. The lack of this concept led to lack of understanding by both the reporting teacher and the administration, and as a result; they failed to show empathy to the accused teacher because of their lack of understanding (Constantine & Yeh, 2001).
The lack of understanding of other peoples’ situations and circumstances is the biggest barrier to exercising empathy through the embracing of the concept of universal diverse orientation. The teacher that reported the case as well as the administration failed along this line of professionalism. Firstly, they should have tried to understand the other teacher’s predicaments before doing any stereotyping or labeling (Tina & Madonna, 2001).
References
Constantine, M. G. and Yeh, C. J. (2001). Multicultural Training, Self-construal, and Multicultural Competence of School Counselors. ProfessionalSchool Counseling, Issue 4, pp 202-207.
Tina, J. A and Madonna, C. (2001). Universal-diverse Orientation and General Expectations about Counseling: Their relation to college students’ multicultural counseling expectations. The Journal of College Students Development.
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