Week 1: Imagining Equity

Key Terms Equity: fairness, justice, and equal opportunity by acknowledging and addressing individual and systemic differences and disadvantages. Working to achieve equity acknowledges unequal starting places and the need to correct the imbalance. Social Justice: the collective work aimed at building and maintaining a society that is fair and equal for everyone, where each individual and group is respected and acknowledged. It involves initiatives to eliminate systemic violence, racism, and any systems that diminish the worth and humanity of any individual. Critical Making: a learning-by-doing practice that bridges critical thinking with hands-on production activities to explore the relationships among technologies, art, design and social issues. Social Identities: a way to define or explain who you are, comprising different characteristics or attributes (e.g. age, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, class, sexual orientation, ability, religious beliefs, etc.) Civil Rights: equality under the law and the right to personal liberty; the right to live and move freely as an equal citizen. American Dream: the belief that anyone in America has the freedom and opportunity to achieve success through hard work and determination Oppression: being subject to unjust and sometimes abusive exercises of power and control; being denied opportunities and freedoms by those with authority and power; can function on an individual level (e.g, bullying) or a systemic and institutional level (e.g. slavery); can have serious and long standing impacts on those who are oppressed Prejudice: a preconceived, often unconscious, judgment or opinion about a person or group; usually a negative bias Racism: Individual, cultural, institutional and systemic ways by which differential consequences are created for groups historically or currently defined as being advantaged, and groups historically or currently defined as disadvantaged or non-White (African, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, etc.). Discrimination: Actions stemming from conscious or unconscious prejudice, which favor and empower one group over others based on differences of race, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, physical ability, religion, language, age, national identity, religion and other categories. - Sexism: Prejudiced thoughts and discriminatory actions based on difference in sex/gender; usually by men against women. - Heterosexism: ​​The presumption that everyone is, and should be, heterosexual (Attracted to members of the opposite sex) - Ableism: Prejudicial thoughts and discriminatory actions based on differences in physical, mental, and/or emotional ability; usually that of able-bodied/minded persons against people with illnesses, disabilities, or less developed skills/talents. - Homophobia: The fear or hatred of homosexuality (and other non-heterosexual identities), and persons perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual and /or transgender. - Classism: Prejudicial thoughts and discriminatory actions based on difference in socioeconomic status and income, usually referred to as class. Most particularly refers to the hierarchical striation of people by class - Ageism: Prejudicial thoughts and discriminatory actions based on differences in age; usually evidenced as a societal predilection for younger persons over older persons - Xenophobia: the unreasonable fear or dislike of things, cultures, forms of expression, or people that are different from oneself and one’s own experiences of the everyday; fear of that which seems foreign or strange