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AEQXXX10.1177/0741713615606965Adult Education QuarterlyKasl and Yorks

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Adult Education Quarterly
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Do I Really Know You? © The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0741713615606965
Empathy Amid Diversity in aeq.sagepub.com

Differing Learning Contexts

Elizabeth Kasl1 and Lyle Yorks2

Abstract
We explore the need for empathy in diverse groups, conceptualize the epistemology
of empathy in relationship to whole-person dialogue, and examine strategies for creating
empathic space that take into consideration the paradox of diversity. Two examples
from our practice illustrate the role of empathic connection in personal learning and
organizational change.

Keywords
empathy, paradox of diversity, whole-person dialogue, extended epistemology

Facilitating learning across personal and social divides has always been a significant
facet of adult education practice, one that is becoming more critical in the intensifying
complexity of globalization and societal upheavals (Fenwick, 2003; Sheared, Johnson-
Bailey, Colin, Peterson, & Brookfield, 2010; Yorks & Nicolaides, 2013). Adult educa-
tors must be adept at cultivating diversity as a catalyst for personal and social
transformation. In this article, we explore the need for empathy amid diversity, con-
ceptualize the epistemology of empathy, and suggest factors that educators can evalu-
ate to meet the challenges of creating empathic space in settings with contentious
personal or social divides. Two cases drawn from our experiences as adult educators
illustrate these dynamics: One case describes graduate students inquiring into their
individual racial identities; the other describes transdisciplinary action inquiry focused
on relationships in institutional culture.

1Independent Scholar, Castro Valley, CA, USA

2Teacher’s College, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:
Elizabeth Kasl, Independent Scholar, 4859 Seaview Avenue, Castro Valley, CA 94546-2344, USA.
Email: ekasl@earthlink.net

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2 Adult Education Quarterly 

Three Tenets of Adult Learning

Our analysis of empathy incorporates three educational tenets valued by adult educa-
tors: (1) Significant learning is grounded in the learner’s life experience, (2) signifi-
cant learning integrates multiple ways of knowing, and (3) dialogue contributes
markedly to significant learning. Before describing how these tenets intersect in our
theoretical understanding of empathy, we elaborate them briefly.

1. Adult educators have long argued that the learner’s life experience, trans-
formed through reflection, is the base for significant learning (e.g., Boud,
Keogh, & Walker, 1985; Lindeman, 1926; Mezirow, 1991). While discourse on
reflection recognizes an affective dimension, primary emphasis has been on
the cognitive (Cranton & Taylor, 2012).
2. Adult educators increasingly recognize that multiple ways of knowing enhance
learning from experience. Our literature proliferates with calls to appreciate
ways of knowing beyond rational, such as intuitive, imaginal, emotional,
unconscious, embodied, and spiritual. To name a few examples: John Dirkx
(2006) depicts how images arise from the subconscious and are explained in
extrarational ways. Randee Lawrence (2009) explores how creating art brings
into conscious awareness the subconscious knowledge present in intuition or
dreams. Referring to Elana Michelson (1998), Carolyn Clark (2012) writes,
“Embodied knowing makes the argument that knowing is not simply a cogni-
tive process; we also know in and through our bodies” (p. 426). Taj Johns
(2006) describes how African Americans combine story with embodied know-
ing to heal from experience of internalized oppression. Sharing stories gener-
ates insight into others’ cultural and spiritual experiences (Taylor, 2008;
Tisdell, 2003). Educators are cautioned that storytelling in educational practice
“requires authentic engagement” and “is not fast” (Tyler & Swartz, 2012,
pp. 465-466).
3. Dialogue contributes markedly to significant learning. By presenting ideas to
others and encountering others’ points of view, learners clarify, expand, and
attune their thinking. Dialogue involves being mindful, asking questions, and
talking from one’s own experience (Bohm, 1996), in contrast to debate, in
which one advocates a point of view. When people’s life experiences are very
different, dialogue’s power is challenged by the paradox of diversity (Kasl &
Yorks, 2012; Yorks & Kasl, 2002). The paradox arises from diversity’s poten-
tial for positive or negative impact: Diversity can catalyze learning through
encounter with other perspectives but can also generate obstacles that thwart
this potential. When life experiences are so different that people seem to inhabit
different worlds, they cannot understand how the other person’s perspective
might be credible. In this circumstance, authentic dialogue is unlikely.

Empathy opens pathways between different worlds. Educators are more able to
create empathic space when they consider the epistemology of empathy.

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Kasl and Yorks 3

Epistemology of Empathy
Empathy as a phenomenon is underexplored in adult education discourse about learn-
ing (Taylor, in press). Our analysis of the epistemology of empathy is embedded in a
general theory of person developed by John Heron (1992). Heron postulates an extended
epistemology with four ways of knowing: experiential, presentational, propositional,
and practical. Experiential knowing derives from embodied resonance with phenom-
ena; it is prelinguistic, affective, and tacit. Presentational knowing is intuitive grasp of
imaginal patterns; it finds expression in stories, artistic forms, and metaphors.
Propositional knowing is based on observable evidence and expressed in intellectual
concepts rooted in logic. Practical knowing formulates competent action. Heron’s the-
ory accounts for multiple ways of knowing discussed in adult education literature: emo-
tions, embodiment, spirituality, imagination, intuition, analysis, reflection, and action
are all subsumed within one of the four ways of knowing as Heron theorizes them.
Heron’s (1992) theory not only describes individual ways of knowing but also
explains how they interrelate. Extended epistemology is an “up-hierarchy” that Heron
depicts as a triangle, with experiential knowing at the base and presentational, propo-
sitional, and practical knowing layered sequentially above. Each way of knowing is
grounded in the ways of knowing that are below it in the triangle. Thus, experiential
knowing grounds all others. Validity is established through critical subjectivity, a pro-
cess in which a person checks continuously for internal coherence among the four
ways of knowing.
By mapping concepts developed by empathy researchers onto Heron’s (1992)
model of extended epistemology, we explain two phenomena at the heart of our analy-
sis: the relationship of empathy to the three tenets of adult learning and the power of
presentational knowing to create empathy amid diversity.
Research on empathy is generated in such diverse fields as biology, neuroscience, and
psychology. Psychologists Stephanie Preston and Alicia Hofelich (2012) observe, “After
at least a century of discussion. . . . Most agree upon the existence of multiple overlap-
ping but distinguishable empathic phenomena” (p. 24). Particularly relevant to our anal-
ysis is the distinction between cognitive empathy and emotional or affective empathy.
Referring to this conceptual distinction, cognitive neuroscientist Henrik Walter (2012)
observes, “The neural circuits underlying different forms of empathy do overlap but also
involve rather specific brain areas” (p. 9). In developing a questionnaire to measure
cognitive and affective empathy, Renate Reniers, Rhiannon Corcoran, Richard Drake,
Nick M. Shryane, and Birgit A. Völlm (2011) created a working definition, which is
representative: “...cognitive will be understood as the ability to construct a working
model of the emotional states of others, and affective empathy will be understood as the
ability to be sensitive to and vicariously experience the feelings of others” (p. 85).
Cognitive empathy simulates “understanding the other by engaging one’s own represen-
tations through effortful, top–down processes” (Preston & Hofelich, 2012, p. 25).
Mapped onto Heron’s (1992) epistemology, the construct of emotional empathy is
located in experiential knowing. The site of emotions and embodiment, experiential
knowing is direct phenomenological encounter that is tacit and nonlinguistic—in this
case, direct encounter with the other and the other’s emotional state.

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4 Adult Education Quarterly 

Mapped onto Heron’s (1992) epistemology, the construct of cognitive empathy

is a flawed concept. Constructed in the realm of propositional knowing, it is a men-
tal model of the other’s emotional state, simulated from one’s personal experience
in “an effortful, top–down process.” In Heron’s up-hierarchy, valid knowledge is
grounded in personal experiential knowing. A cognitive model of someone else’s
experiential knowing dissociates cognition from experience. The constructed model
might appear valid when two people’s experiential worlds are similar, but when
they are dissimilar, cognitive empathy fails to produce an accurate model. The
other person is misperceived and the paradox of diversity generates an obstacle to
dialogue.
Presentational knowing solves the conundrum of how to bridge the chasm between
different experiential worlds (Kasl & Yorks, 2012; Yorks & Kasl, 2006). Before look-
ing at how presentational knowing creates empathic bridges between people, we
review how it functions within an individual person.
Presentational knowing is imaginal and is accessed through expressive forms such
as story, doodles, visual or dramatic art, movement, or metaphors. In the triangle that
depicts up-hierarchy, presentational knowing is located between experiential and
propositional knowing. It links the two by bringing to conscious awareness the pat-
terns in felt experience. Those patterns are then available for reflection and analysis to
produce propositional knowing, which in turn informs practical knowing as action. We
call this integrative process “whole-person knowing.” It enacts the first two tenets of
adult learning—experience as the ground, transformed into learning by multiple ways
of knowing.
Presentational knowing bridges the chasm between different experiential worlds,
thus facilitating success with dialogue, which is the third tenet. Dialogue is a verbal
exchange between individuals who are each rooted in personal experience; successful
dialogue requires understanding the other’s experience. To have perfect understand-
ing of another’s lived experience, one would have to be the other person. Since this is
not possible, the best portal of access to another’s experience is shared imaginal space
that presents the experiential one. Shared presentational knowing is a space of com-
munion through intuition and imagination that brings alive the other’s felt world. We
call this process “whole-person dialogue,” which we described previously as
learning-within-relationship:

A process in which persons strive to become engaged with both their own whole-person
knowing and the whole-person knowing of their fellow learners. Engagement with one’s
own whole-person knowing requires critical subjectivity while developing capacity for
the skillful practice of multiple ways of knowing. Engagement with the whole person of
fellow learners requires interacting with others through the same balanced mix in ways of
knowing . . . (Yorks & Kasl, 2002, p. 185)

Whole-person dialogue creates opportunity for empathic connection, which is

encounter with feelings, ideas, and actions from within the other’s life world. Whole-
person dialogue both creates and is created from empathic space in a spiral of mutual
resonance.

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Kasl and Yorks 5

Within the whole-person dialogue process, cognitive empathy differs from the
dynamic depicted in the empathy research literature. We posit a cognitive model of the
other’s life world that is formulated from presentational encounter with the other’s
world, rather than from simulations based on one’s personal experience.

Assessing Dimensions of Difference That Affect Empathy

To assess challenges in creating empathic space, educators can analyze three dimen-
sions of difference, which we conceptualize as continua and summarize in Table 1.
Although we describe the dimensions separately, they are not discreet and interact in
limitless permutations.

Continua of Relational Power

Educators can ask, “How is power distributed in this group?” Power is distributed
equally when group members relate as peers and unequally when they relate
hierarchically.
Hierarchy that governs power distribution can be formal or informal. When formal,
special rights and responsibilities are designated for some participant roles. Examples of
groups with formal hierarchy are as follows: teacher and learners, manager and team
members, or staff director and community volunteers. When hierarchy is informal, indi-
viduals acquire influence because they have characteristics that the group values for
pragmatic reasons, such as content expertise, political savvy, or likeability. Other char-
acteristics that create hierarchies of influence are identity variables that the larger social
milieu values differently—such as gender, race, or class. Continua of relational power
characterize power relations among constituent subgroups as well as individuals.
Educators have more difficulty cultivating empathic space when relational power is
hierarchical, that is, when individuals or subgroups are related unequally. Educators
should be aware that relational power can be peer by formal designation but hierarchi-
cal in practice because of traits valued by the group.

Continuum of Hegemonic Embeddedness

Educators can ask, “How aware are individuals of their personal relationship to hege-
mony?” Hegemony refers to domination of an entire society by the beliefs, values, and
practices of a subgroup. The favored subgroup’s beliefs and behaviors are regarded in
the larger social milieu as normative, and subgroup members accrue unearned privi-
lege. People who do not belong to the privileged group sometimes internalize the
hegemony, adopting the sanctioned norms for themselves.
The continuum of hegemonic embeddedness describes conscious awareness of per-
sonal relationship to hegemony. At one pole, people are unaware that they have
accepted cultural norms uncritically; they have internalized hegemony as “the right
way to be” and occupy the hegemonic center. People at the hegemonic center can be
members of the privileged group or of marginalized subgroups. At the other pole are

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6 Adult Education Quarterly 

Table 1.  Dimensions of Difference That Affect Empathy.

Dimensions of difference Description

Continua of relational power How is power distributed within a group?

Peer, distributed equally
Peer__________________Hierarchical (formal) Hierarchical, distributed unequally:
  Formal = Special roles
Peer_________________Hierarchical (informal)   Informal = Characteristics valued by the group

Continuum of hegemonic embeddedness How aware are individuals of personal relationship

to hegemony?
Hegemonic center________Hegemonic periphery  Hegemony = domination of entire society by
beliefs, values, and practices of a subgroup
Center, perceive others as outside bounds of normal.
Periphery, perceive those in center as pernicious,
oppressive, unconscious, ignorant

Continuum of emotional valence What is learner’s emotional stake?

High________________________Low   Valence = strength of emotions
High, strong attraction, or avoidance for the learning
 High valence intensifies impact of other
continua
Low, indifference to the learning

people who are critically aware of how hegemony affects their lives; they inhabit the
hegemonic periphery. Again, they may belong to either kind of group—privileged or
marginalized. People in the hegemonic periphery who are members of marginalized
groups typically develop double consciousness as a way of adapting to a society domi-
nated by others (Du Bois, 1903/1994). This double consciousness provides informa-
tion about the dominating worldview from an outsider’s location, which is qualitatively
different from inhabiting a shared space of empathic connection.
Because individuals at one location tend to stereotype those at the other, educators
have more difficulty cultivating empathic space when the group contains individuals
from a mix of locations on this continuum. People embedded at the hegemonic center
perceive the “other” as deficient, unworthy, or unfortunate, perhaps exotic, but outside
the bounds of “normal.” People in the periphery often perceive those at the center as
pernicious and oppressive, perhaps unconscious or ignorant. When mixed into one
group, they embody the paradox of diversity: They cannot learn from one another
because they do not accept the other’s perspective as credible. To nurture empathic
space in this environment requires investment of considerable time.

Continuum of Emotional Valence

Educators can ask, “What is the learner’s emotional stake in this situation?” Valence
indicates the strength of emotions attached to new learning. High valence describes

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Kasl and Yorks 7

strong emotional force, whether of attraction or of avoidance. Low valence applies when
learners are indifferent. When content or process puts in play high emotional valence, the
dynamics of relational power and hegemony are triggered and intensified.
In making decisions about whether or how to promote empathic space, educators
should consider the detriments and benefits of high emotional valence. High emo-
tional valence as an attractor contributes powerfully to significant learning, but high
valence as avoidance creates formidable obstruction. Individuals and the group as a
learning environment are both vulnerable when learners’ prized beliefs, values, or
other taken-for-granted meaning perspectives are challenged.

Translating Into Practice

Examples from our practice demonstrate how presentational knowing nurtures empa-
thy. Commentary about dimensions of difference follows each case description. These
examples from our practice are intended to be illustrative. Our theory-of-practice
grows deductively from John Heron’s (1992) theory of personhood and is not empiri-
cally derived from the examples.

Expanding Racial Consciousness in Individuals

Our first example describes how doctoral students used presentational knowing to cre-
ate cross-racial empathy. This 6-month project engaged a cohort of 19 students during
its second-year curriculum. The description is drawn from Elizabeth’s personal experi-
ence and a published account written by four students (Barlas, Cherry-Smith,
Rosenwasser, & Winlock, 2006).

What happened?  Fulfilling a program requirement to create a “group elective,” the cohort
decided to study race from a personal perspective by using synergic inquiry. Synergic
inquiry (SI) is an action research strategy that helps people understand a characteristic on
which they differ (Tang & Joiner, 2006). In this case, the characteristic of difference was
racial consciousness. The cohort formed two teams—the Black team with 6 African Amer-
ican students and the White team with 13 White students plus 1 White teacher.
The supervising faculty (who was Chinese) recruited Black and White team mem-
bers to meet with him outside of class. He and these four students collaborated to plan
activities for the inquiry about race. During cohort weekends, the supervising faculty
led academic discussion about SI methodology and then turned the class over to the
student design team.
SI methodology prescribes four sequential processes: Self-Knowing, Other-
Knowing, Difference Holding, Difference Transcending. For 3 months, students pur-
sued Self-Knowing. Meeting in race-based teams, they explored racial consciousness
as individuals and as an identity group. In addition to meeting during monthly week-
end seminars, teams convened several times in the interim. The doctoral program
promoted multiple ways of knowing. As second-year students acclimated to this
norm, teams used expressive forms such as storytelling, visual arts, music, and body-
based practices.

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8 Adult Education Quarterly 

Student facilitators led all Self-Knowing activities. The cohort’s White faculty
adviser participated in the White team as a member. She was not part of the facilitator
group. The Chinese supervising faculty was not a member of either team.
At the end of 3 months, each team presented its Self-Knowing. Using poetry and
music (drumming, song, jazz saxophone), the Black team presented its Self-Knowing
as community-oriented epistemology (Ubuntu) and oppositional consciousness. Using
movement and visual art, the White team presented Self-Knowing as independence
and self-reliance, with corollary feelings of isolation and yearning for community (see
Elizabeth’s story in Yorks & Kasl, 2002).
The cohort continued using expressive practices when it progressed to Other-
Knowing. Having watched the other team’s presentation of Self-Knowing, learners
progressed to encountering the other team’s life world experientially. For example, the
Black team created a scenario to help the White team experience what it is like to be
Black. The White team acted out the scenario while the Black team watched. In the
exercise, people with blue eyes were arrested and manhandled by police officers. After
the exercise, White team members described feeling physical fear and loss of control.
Black team members reported they could see the fear; one member observed, “Helen,
when that cop threw you against the wall, I could see you were getting it. I could see
in your eyes that you were scared.” The team also pointed out ways that some White
members’ behavior was not congruent with Black lived experience, such as aggres-
sively resisting the police.
As these kinds of activities continued, Other-Knowing improved—that is, White
team members became more able to embody Black lived experience, and Blacks to
embody White. Although improved, Other-Knowing was still partial. One afternoon
near the end of the inquiry, a White woman, voice quavering with emotion, said, “I
don’t understand why you don’t kill us. I would want to do that, I’d be so furious.” A
Black woman replied, “You’ve got part of it. You are right about being furious.” She
paused, then continued softly, “But if we did that, if we acted on that fury, we would
lose our humanity.”
By sharing imaginal space and checking in with each other through dialogue, stu-
dents grew more able to understand their racial other’s feelings, ideas, and actions
from within the other’s experiential world. They lived empathic connection.

Assessing dimensions of difference. We observe how dimensions of difference func-

tioned to facilitate learning.

Relational power.  The supervisor altered formal role hierarchy by planning collab-
oratively with students. He played a traditional role of content expert when he led
in-class discussion about SI methodology but turned the class over to students who
led the racial consciousness inquiry. He further relinquished role power by asking
permission to observe team meetings. The Black team told him “no,” explaining how
important it was to them emotionally that Black Self-Knowing remain private. The
White team granted permission, but when he started talking during a team meeting,
a student reminded him, “You’re not White. You can’t participate in this discussion.”

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Kasl and Yorks 9

That students in both teams felt empowered to tell their faculty he could not participate
indicates successful moderation of teacher–student hierarchy. The students’ sense of
ownership provides one indicator of their strong emotional investment in the inquiry.
During Self-Knowing, each team explored informal hierarchies of influence con-
ferred by personal characteristics. The Black team examined how skin tone, assimila-
tion, and geographic origins affected racial consciousness and hierarchies of influence
within the team. Similarly, the White team explored the impact of gender, class, eth-
nicity, and geographic origin.
Within the cohort, hierarchical relationship between the two subgroups was com-
plex. Formally, SI methodology structures interaction to support the premise of peer
relationship. Informally, the privilege generally assigned to Whiteness by larger cul-
tural norms was obviated by the Black team’s greater content expertise about racial
consciousness. The White team gradually recognized the Black team’s superior knowl-
edge and accorded it leadership influence during the inquiry.

Hegemonic embeddedness. Evaluating the experience, the cohort agreed that the

White team had more difficulty with Other-Knowing than the Black. This phenomenon
is accounted for by the relationship between hegemonic location and capacity to per-
ceive different worldviews. A lifetime exercising double consciousness gave Black team
members a head start on understanding the racial other; a lifetime of socialization that
defines one’s personal point of view as normative put White team members behind.

Emotional valence.  Emotional valence was high for most students, who voluntarily
invested scores of hours in team meetings outside of class. Black team members trea-
sured being able to meet in private—to explore Self-Knowing with candor not possi-
ble in the presence of Whites. White team members could be vulnerable in expressing
guilt and bewilderment about privilege, fears about race, and isolation from commu-
nity. For a few White students, the SI aroused defensiveness and denial, resulting in
detached participation that thwarted learning.

Impact of empathic space.  Years later, Elizabeth asked one of the Black women what
she had learned during the cohort curriculum.

Without hesitation she answered, “One thing I learned is that white people really are that
unconscious. I am fifty years old, and my whole life I’ve thought that white people had
to do this stuff on purpose because nobody could be so dumb. I knew if I did the things
White folks do, I’d be doing it with malice. And now I can see . . .” Her voice trailed off,
then shaking her head in disbelief and revelation, she continued, “. . . they really don’t do
these dumb things on purpose. (Yorks & Kasl, 2002, p. 179)

This Black woman had observed White people her “whole life” from her standpoint
of double consciousness—aware of how White people’s behavior affected her, seeing
it from the outside and judging it to be malicious. During the SI project, she entered
the life world of White people and discovered through empathic connection that her
beliefs were wrong: White people’s hurtful behavior is not purposive; they are

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10 Adult Education Quarterly 

genuinely unaware. In Mezirow’s (1991) conceptualization, she learned a new frame

of reference and, possibly, a transformed point of view.

Developing Team Unity From Subgroup Cultures

Our second case describes how a project team created empathic space that bridged
difference between subcultures. This description of a 5-year project undertaken by the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is drawn from Lyle’s personal experience
and published accounts written by project participants (Kowalski, Yorks, & Jelink,
2006; Yorks, Neuman, Kowalski, & Kowalski, 2007).

What happened?  The project began in 1998 when Jim, a mid-level human resource
professional at national VA headquarters, was reflecting on recurring employee behav-
iors that required disciplinary actions. He realized these actions did not resolve the
primary problem, which he believed was workplace stress and aggression. “I was
repeating what I had done for 16 years . . . [without] addressing the real underlying
causes” (Yorks et al., 2007, p. 354).

Organizing the project and assembling the players.  Jim identified two psychologists
known for their research on workplace stress and aggression who were interested
in acquiring data to develop and validate an instrument. Their report would include
implications for application in the workplace. Subsequently another researcher was
recruited; he was from a university research center working with practitioners.
In August 1999, part of the team attended an action research workshop at the
Academy of Management. After the group presented its quasi-experimental design to
measure change using quantitative data, a workshop facilitator asked, “Where’s the
action in your research?” (Kowalski et al., 2006, p. 499). Reflecting on the question,
VA members decided their plan would result in “just another study sitting on the
shelf.” This realization led to changes that brought the project into alignment with the
action orientation of the VA participants. The revised plan greatly expanded the num-
ber of VA personnel and added a university-based action learning researcher, who
would introduce organizational learning practices featuring reflection and dialogue.
The 2-year planning process came to fruition with a National Science Foundation
grant for a 3-year collaborative action inquiry. The project team had 14 people—10 VA
professionals representing a variety of functions and locations and 4 university-based
academics from three disciplines: adult and organizational learning, organizational/
social psychology, and management. While the turn toward collaborative action
research increased group awareness of the need for diverse perspectives and skills,
project members had no idea how challenging that diversity would be.

Competing agendas. Practitioners and university-based scholars inhabit different

worlds, each with its own values and culture. These worlds manifested distinct goals:
The managers wanted to plan and implement action that would change their work-
place; the academics wanted to expand disciplinary knowledge and conduct research.

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Kasl and Yorks 11

Inhabitants of one culture sometimes hold the other in low regard. This attitude
showed itself early, in a meeting that took place in a large room with a U-shaped set
up. Practitioners had seated themselves along one side of the “U” and academics along
the other. Jim addressed an academic with a question about creating teams in the field
sites. As the academic started answering, he noticed a practitioner across the “U” with
an expression that “looked very cynical like ‘what does he know about what goes on
in the field’ (personal communication).”
In addition to the practitioner–academic divide, differences among academics
emerged. Some were more oriented toward traditional research, others toward learning
processes. Two researchers felt “the project was hijacked” from its original focus on
stress and aggression when the organizational learning component was incorporated to
obtain the National Science Foundation grant. Other issues emerged: questions about
validity and tensions regarding control and timing of action plans. One team member
observed, “The university researchers did not want to contaminate the experimental
portion of the project by suggesting interventions, while the VA co-researchers were
conscious of the need to move forward” (Yorks et al., 2007, p. 358).

Learning that process is product.  Team members initially assumed that collabora-
tive interaction was their means to an end product—interventions against workplace
aggression, or research completed and published. Over the course of 3 years they
recognized that the collaborative process itself was the product.
Learning about collaboration accelerated when part of the team attended a Society
for Organizational Learning Greenhouse. The Greenhouse facilitators asked teams to
imagine an idea for a movie that would tell the team’s story and create a poster to
advertise the movie. Rita, a VA manager, describes a key moment.

I left my home group to work on another project’s poster. When I rejoined my project team
. . . and saw the poster, I was speechless. While the project team had talked about the impact
of our own negative behaviors seeing the poster touched upon accountability and each
person’s contribution to workplace behavior’s dark side. (Kowalski et al., 2006, p. 502)

The team had named its movie Dissing: Bring Disrespect out of the Closet. Starring
You!! (see Figure 1). This experience of learning through presentational knowing
marked a turning point, catalyzing team growth in capacity for collaboration.
The group began incorporating presentational knowing practices, not only to nur-
ture insight within the team but also to communicate to other audiences. Rita started
using the Society for Organizational Learning poster when she made presentations to
leadership groups. She reported that participants were initially “silent, uncomfortable,
and resistant—but then they began having conversations about interactions they have
faced with a fresh honesty” (Kowalski et al., 2006, p. 506). Participants came to real-
ize how storytelling communicated experiences more effectively than formal reports
with PowerPoint. At the 2003 Academy of Management meeting, the team turned its
presentation into theater by interspersing small story pieces into descriptions of theory.
In the project’s final close-out session, field teams performed skits that provided

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12 Adult Education Quarterly 

Figure 1.  Rita’s inquiry team’s poster.

Source. Kowalski, Yorks, and Jelink (2006). Used with permission.

examples of functional and dysfunctional behaviors. One academic reflected, “We are
laughing. . . while. . . learning the message the team wanted to communicate. . .”
(Kowalski et al., 2006, p. 506).
As they increasingly incorporated presentational knowing, individuals gained
insight into the experiences of others and developed greater awareness about their own
behavior. One member explained, “When I found this space internally, I found this
space with others” (Yorks et al., 2007, p. 360). With emergence of new empathic
insights, team members’ perspectives became more inclusive and integrated. An aca-
demic reported, “I began to reflect on the dynamics of the project team and how they
evolved over time. This led to a sensitivity toward process over product” (Yorks et al.,
2007, p. 359).

Assessing dimensions of difference.  We discuss dimensions of difference with primary

attention to the divide in professional cultures.

Relational power.  The two subgroups tended to relate hierarchically, depending on

the issue at hand. Academics often expected others to defer to their disciplinary exper-
tise, while practitioners asserted their knowledge of the organization. Differences
played out in the aforementioned difficult conversations about validity and action
plans as well as the functional role of ambiguity.
This group’s story is a journey along the continuum of relational power, from hier-
archy to peer. Although collaborative action inquiry structure formally designates

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Kasl and Yorks 13

relationship as peer, hierarchy based on expertise struggled to assert itself, often with
contention and disrespect. The group concluded its journey by inhabiting collaborative
space in which members related authentically as peers who valued each other’s contri-
butions. During the final year, a union official who was attending a meeting observed,
“I cannot tell the difference between the academics and the VA people” (Yorks et al.,
2007, p. 368).

Hegemonic embeddedness.  Professional subcultures created dual hegemonies. The

academics lived in a world of propositional knowing, a culture that rewards people
who advance disciplinary discourse through research and publication. The VA man-
agers lived in a world of practical knowing. VA culture is situated in evidence-based
medicine, but managers’ priority for the project was practical results and a measure-
ment-based business case.
The group’s journey on the hegemony continuum mirrors its relational journey
from hierarchy to peer. From a system of two subgroups embedded in competing hege-
monies, it developed multidisciplinary consciousness. Eventually the group replaced
“practitioner–academic” with “organizational researcher–university researcher,”
delineating the reality that everyone on the team was a researcher and that diverse
perspectives enhanced the project outcomes.

Emotional valence. Emotional valence was high for all participants, although

objectives shifted. Initially, individuals felt strong positive attractions to different
features of the project. As the project evolved, high valence gradually attached to
project goals shared by all. As this evolving unity unfolded, participants reflected
critically on how their emotional stake in different goals had negative impact during
the project’s initial stages. The team grew to inhabit the values of doing research with
people and not on them.

Learning impact.  What they learned during the project changed participants’ profes-
sional practices. Considering her new appreciation for enlisting multiple ways of
knowing in her work, a VA manager explained,

For years I had been coached to rely solely on objective data, and being totally
dispassionate. This approach . . . overlooked the fact that organizations consist of people
with emotions and feelings. (Kowalski et al., 2006, pp. 503-504)

Reflecting on the project a few years after its conclusion, a university researcher
reported:

I used to teach as if things were either true or false. I don’t do that anymore. Now I talk
to people like here’s my relationship to what I think this means. What does it mean to
you? . . . I’m looking to provoke more communicating. In fact, a lot of stuff I used to
know as the truth at best I’ll recognize I only think I know and there’s even more that I
thought I know that I don’t know. So it’s been profoundly changing for me personally and
professionally. (Yorks et al., 2007, p. 368)

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14 Adult Education Quarterly 

Concluding Summary and Recommendations

Although we think it unwise to prescribe recommendations for practice a-contextually,
we hope our rich description helps educators perceive how they might apply these
concepts in their practice.

Concluding Summary
Each example portrays how the paradox of diversity was surmounted through devel-
oping empathic space. In one, diversity resides in racial consciousness of Blacks and
Whites, a source of great divisiveness in the United States. In the other, diversity
relates to workplace cultures that typically disrespect or caricature each other. We
summarize important features of the examples.

Time.  Each project consumed large amounts of time. The 6-month racial conscious-
ness inquiry was undertaken during the second curriculum year, enabling students to
build on the foundation of their first year’s learning and relationships. The VA’s funded
3-year project was built on a foundation of 2 years’ preparation.

Project goals.  The examples differ in level of system targeted for learning and in the
relationship of empathy to intended outcome. The students’ learning target was the
individual, with a purpose of learning about self and other as racial beings. Enhanced
understanding of the racial other seems equivalent to identifying empathy as an intended
outcome. In the VA project, the managers’ goal was organizational change and the aca-
demics’ primary goal was to increase disciplinary knowledge about organizational
change. For both subgroups, developing empathy and learning to collaborate were
unanticipated outcomes, but the empathic connections ultimately smoothed a path
toward unifying participants’ perspectives, which enabled them to realize project goals.
Adult educators embrace dual professional missions of fostering individual learn-
ing and promoting systemic change. The examples demonstrate how these objectives
interrelate in an ongoing spiral. When participants enter the spiral with a goal of per-
sonal learning, their new insights often have an impact on the systems they inhabit.
When participants enter the spiral with the goal of effecting systemic change, they
typically experience new learning about themselves and others.

Project structures.  Each project used structure that defined formal relational power. SI
promotes equality with peer-sustaining procedures for Self-Knowing and Other-
Knowing. The VA project’s formal structure included two elements: espoused norms
of peer relationship for collaborative action inquiry and a designated role authorizing
one person (the action learning researcher) to interject reflective learning practices
into the process in real time.

Relational power.  Hierarchical relationships operated for individuals and subgroups. In

neither case narrative did we supply detail about individual relational power that accrued
from informal attributions, but we did note how relational role power was shaped to

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Kasl and Yorks 15

further learning goals. In the SI project, the faculty counteracted his formal role power
by delegating authority and responsibility to student facilitators. In the VA project, the
group delegated special authority to one member to act as action learning coach.
Relational power of subgroups plays an important role. In both projects, the inquiry
structure formally defined subgroups as equal but informal hierarchies prevailed. For
the SI, the Black team’s superior content knowledge provided that group with an edge
in credibility, counteracting a general cultural norm that privileges Whiteness. For the
VA project, competing professional cultures initially created tension and struggle to
prevail.

Reciprocity in relational power and hegemonic embeddedness.  These two dimensions are
interconnected and mutually reinforcing. Hegemony influences how the system
assigns informal relational power, which becomes a self-reinforcing influence that
dominates the learning system. In both case examples, this dynamic was interrupted.

Project epistemology.  Each project used an action research approach, which prescribes
that new knowledge be grounded in experience.
In both cases, cultivation of a deeply felt empathic field fostered project success.
Presentational knowing was integral to fostering empathic space as the context in
which authentic dialogue could thrive. The second-year graduate students were already
skilled with presentational knowing practices. After experiencing a turning point with
its movie poster, the VA team increasingly adopted presentational knowing as a strat-
egy for the team’s internal work and for communicating with others.

Recommendations
Adult educators work in a variety of settings: classrooms that range from basic literacy
to graduate education, community venues for social action or service, workplace
learning in organizations with profit or not-for-profit missions, and research—particu-
larly action-based research oriented toward change. Although each field develops
unique perceptions about principles for best practice, practitioners across all settings
perform common activities: They assess program goals, create program infrastructures
and learning processes, and think critically about the educator’s role. In performing
these activities, practitioners weigh what is feasible in confronting the challenges of
bridging personal and social divides. The greater the diversity among participating
learners and the stronger the emotional valence of the issues being addressed, the more
radical the constituent program elements need to be.

Program goals.  Educators can leverage connections between individual learning and
systemic change. When working with teams focused on systemic change, educators
can promote activities that enable team members to know themselves empathically as
interconnected beings in the system. When working to foster individual learning, edu-
cators can challenge and support individuals to apply empathic insights in the systems
they inhabit.

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16 Adult Education Quarterly 

Program structures.  To maximize the potential of diversity as a catalyst for significant

learning and change, program structures should support whole-person dialogue.

Infrastructure.  Meta-level program structure creates architecture in which discrete

learning activities happen. Infrastructure can support relational learning by maximiz-
ing the amount of time that groups of learners are together. In higher education, cohort
programs prolong the time available to forge learning relationships. Similar examples
are professional development programs that bring participants together intermittently
over time, with interim electronic communication. Leadership programs for commu-
nity-based volunteers and social activists use similar approaches.
In addition to extending the time learners are together, program architecture can
maximize diversity. Organizations partner with others to bring together participants
from diverse industry or community sectors. Cohort programs recruit participants
from different fields of practice.
Program infrastructure should include support systems that are responsive to emo-
tional needs precipitated by the learning experience. Educators can create structures
that extend support after learners complete the course of study.

Discrete learning events.  Within overall program architecture, practitioners structure

discrete learning events in classroom and workshop spaces. Here, educators assess
dimensions of difference and ask: What structure for participation will foster peer
relationship? If hierarchy is needed, on what basis should it be assigned and how
should it be delineated? How can we anticipate and counteract sector-related hege-
monic posturing?

Learning processes.  Educators striving to develop empathy should engage the full power
of extended epistemology. Whole-person dialogue cannot be rushed. Nor can the out-
come be preplanned and controlled. Each effort requires mindfulness about how emo-
tions amplify the impact of power and hegemony. Appreciation of and capacity to
facilitate whole-person dialogue is learned from experience, sometimes painfully.

Role of the educator.  Educators must develop hyperawareness of self as part of the learn-
ing system when deciding whether and how to create empathic space. We have proposed
that educators examine hegemonic embeddedness as it relates to learners. Most chal-
lenging is to come to keen awareness of one’s own location within any relevant hege-
mony. This involves what Dorothy Ettling (2012) refers to as practicing contemplative
attunement. She advises that we attend rigorously to our capacity for presence “by
giving consistent time to a solitary experience of listening within” (p. 546). We also
suggest forming educator inquiry groups where practitioners can explore these issues.
Meeting the challenges of facilitating learning across the personal and social divides
that are intensifying as the world becomes more interconnected is a growing need. As
adult educators we contribute to this effort when we ask ourselves continually: How
can we create programs that include widely diverse populations? How can we then
engage with the paradox of diversity to actualize the potential for learning?

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Kasl and Yorks 17

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

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Author Biographies
Elizabeth Kasl is an independent scholar who retired as Professor of Transformative Learning
from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Her research interests include
wholistic learning, transformative learning, participatory methods and epistemologies, racism,
and white privilege. She is an active member of the European-American Collaborative
Challenging Whiteness (ECCW).
Lyle Yorks is Professor of Adult and Continuing Education in the Department of Organization
and Leadership, and Director of the Adult Education Guided Intensive Study Doctoral Program,
Teachers College, Columbia University. His research interests include wholistic learning, trans-
formative learning, collaborative inquiry and action research.

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