Social Equity Survey & Analysis

Abstract

Social Equity (SE) in Public Administration (PA) has a nearly 50 year history and recently has become an accepted pillar of PA. While there are no shortage of texts and articles on the merits and debated contents of SE theory, there is a gap in the literature for consideration of its entire history and an examination of early motivations and resistance to its founder’s – H. George Frederickson – efforts to react to the growing social influences in U.S. culture and the shortcomings of PA theory.This paper reviews SE from its early formation by Frederickson though the matriculation of a protege of Frederickson’s, Susan T. Gooden, to the role of ASPA president. By examining the course of the effort to establish SE as a pillar of PA, SE is considered as a policy development and standard public policy matrices and theories are invoked to understand better the effectiveness of the actors and agents who have pushed for SE to be on the PA ‘agenda’ for so long.Finally, beyond an examination of SE as a policy process, the latest developments in SE are considered and other areas of possible research are suggested to further the goals of actual social equity (not just the theory) within the U.S. and international PA practitioners. An additional aspect of this survey and analysis is a concept map collecting all aspects of SE in a single overview to facilitate learning and awareness by novices to the theory of SE.