Seeing Life in their Shoes: Fostering Empathy Toward Victims of Interpersonal Violence through Five Active Learning Activities

Abstract

As educators of future law enforcement and social service personnel, one of the most important objectives of faculty members within the social sciences disciplines is to foster a sense of empathy toward victims of crime among their students. Empathy toward victims of crime, and domestic abuse in particular, is vastly important as evidence suggests that the reactions survivors encounter upon disclosure influences reporting behavior to law enforcement. Moreover, evidence indicates that by fostering empathy toward domestic abuse survivors among students, social science educators can reduce the endorsement of harmful victim-blaming attitudes that these individuals may otherwise carry with them into their public service. However, despite the importance concerning teaching empathy within the classroom, a dearth of information exists—particularly in the criminal justice pedagogical literature. To address this gap, the objective of this study was to assess several active learning activities designed specifically to foster victim empathy in students. To gather feedback about how these activities affected students, we utilized standard Likert scales as well as several free response questions.