Eliciting empathy embedded in design conversations: empathic perspective-taking of design teachers towards design students, users and materials

Abstract

This paper aims to interrogate the design studio conversations between teachers and students in order to explore the indicators regarding empathy. To investigate design conversations occurring between design teachers and design students, participant observation studies were conducted at two universities in Finland and Turkey. As an empathic indicator, we addressed (1) how design teachers take the perspective of other agencies and (2) what deliveries are utilised for empathic perspective-taking. It was understood that design teachers identify themselves with both human and non-human agencies as design students, users and materials. Moreover, deliveries leading to the identification of design teachers with these agencies included both discursive and performative means.