Glossary
Diversity: Diversity is a principle of higher education that argues that academic communities are enriched by the presence and contributions of students, staff, and faculty from diverse identities, sociodemographic backgrounds, and life experiences.
Equity: In higher education, equity refers to policies, initiatives, and practices that provide the supports students need to achieve equal outcomes on indicators of academic success and achievement. The goal of educational equity is to close the opportunity gap for students from groups that have been historically disadvantaged and marginalized.
Ethnicity: Ethnicity is a socially constructed concept related to and often used interchangeably with race. It refers to groups of people who share characteristics such as ancestry, heritage, country of origin, language, religion, forms of dress, and food.
Gender identity: Gender identity is a personal conception of oneself as a woman, a man, both, neither, or anywhere along the gender spectrum and influences how people think and act according to their gendered selves. Gender identity, in nearly all instances, is self-identified and can be the same as or different from a person’s sex assigned at birth.
Intersectionality: Intersectionality is a theoretical framework for understanding how the identities of people who are members of multiple marginalized socially and culturally constructed categories intersect or converge to create different modes of discrimination and privilege.
Learning objectives: A statement of the knowledge or skills a student should acquire by the end of a class or course.
Liberatory pedagogy: A pedagogy that is an anti-oppressive educational approach designed to liberate minds and level the playing fields between teachers and students.
Race: Race is a socially constructed concept that refers to categorization of people by physical characteristics (e.g., skin color, complexion, facial features). People may identify with a single race or as biracial or multiracial. It is important to note that racial groups are not monoliths and that the significance and meaning of race varies among people within a racial group.
Social identity: People’s social identity indicates who they are in terms of the groups to which they belong. Social identity groups are usually defined by physical, social, and mental characteristics. Examples of social identities are race, ethnicity, gender, social class, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, disabilities and abilities, and religion and religious beliefs.
Socioeconomic status and social class: Socioeconomic status is a position in a socially ranked system determined by a person’s education, income, and occupation and occupational prestige. Students’ socioeconomic status is usually linked to their parents’ or guardians’ level of education, income, and occupational prestige. Social class as a social identity relates to the importance, affect, and emotions associated with a person’s membership or self-categorization within a social class group (e.g., working class). Socioeconomic status is not always aligned with a person’s social class identification. In the US, for example, those who identify as middle class vary on every indicator of socioeconomic status.