Educational Equity

What is educational equity?

For educational equity (Darling-Hammond, 2010; Sims, 2018) to be far-reaching, long-lasting, and sustainable it must be arrived at thoughtfully and systemically. It must be preceded by positive shifts in cultural understanding at the institutional level and by the adoption of equitable pedagogical practices. To be clear, equitable education is not simply about leveling the proverbial playing field. I defined educational equity elsewhere as:

Educational equity must be achieved via intentional work towards the creation of positive, nurturing educational spaces that actively combat structural and institutionalized inequity so that all students are empowered, encouraged, and equipped to succeed academically precisely because they have been afforded rigorous and rich educational opportunities that allow them work towards the realization of their full academic and human potential. (Sims, 2018, p.26).

 Simply leveling the playing field won’t do. Leveling the playing field usually results in equality. Equality is very different from equity, though the two terms/concepts are often confused and or conflated. Put simply: equality is achieved when everyone has the same thing, irrespective of their specific needs or lack thereof. Equity, on the other hand, is achieved when the varied needs of people are considered when developing programming, policies, and pedagogies. Equality is often deployed in the interests of placation and pacification. Equity, conversely, is, well, at least it should be deployed in the interest of social justice—that is, in the interest of empowerment for traditionally disempowered peoples. According to Tuck & Yang (2018), there are, for all intents and purposes, no worthwhile emancipatory educational or equity-centered educational approaches that do not center social justice (Sims, 2018).

Therefore, it is important to note that equity, then, is not the end goal. Equity, if we are honest, is just the first step in the long road toward (social) justice. Working for justice, unlike equity, fixates on chronic diseases like White supremacy, settler colonialism, hetero-patriarchy, etc., and not just the symptoms produced by these systems of power accrual and differentiation.

So, what is the difference between equity and justice? As previously mentioned, equity takes the first position that things are not fair—not unequal, but not fair. Justice-centered analysis, on the other hand, seeks to demystify the malevolent design that catalyzes and ensures the injustices suffered by PMERSCs.  Equity, especially in community college spaces, is celebrated as some kind of Holy Grail, some end goal; but it is not that. It is simply a recognition that some students face obstacles due to nothing more that the families that they were born in to. It is also true that the concept of equity has currency precisely because here in the United States our lives are impacted, infracted, and indissolubly informed by capitalism.