Greater Equity Research Articles

Higher education and the COVID-19 pandemic: navigating disruption using the sustainable development goals

The COVID-19 health crisis has caused profound social and economic disruptions. Affecting everyone, its impact is not equal. Exacerbating deep social fissures and long-standing systemic inequalities, the pandemic reveals the fragilities and inequities in global higher education. Accelerating underlying trends and triggering seismic shifts in the sector, collective efforts over a period of weeks delivered massive change in a sector not known for being fleet-of-foot. As we envisage the ‘next normal’ for higher education, problems with the ‘old normal’ may be fixed and some recent innovations carried forward. Representing a period of punctuated equilibrium, COVID-19 could lead to transformation of the sector towards greater equity and impact across teaching/learning, research/innovation, community service/engagement and the staff/students’ experience. As we ask, “When will HE open again?”, and “When we do, what will it be like?” we may also find ourselves considering “Will some institutions open at all?” Seeking to navigate these volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times—so-called VUCA conditions—we propose that the SDGs are positioned as a lens to re-imagine higher education in mounting an antifragility response. We examine whether a new paradigm is forming that could be more sustainable as budgets, priorities and institutional archetypes are challenged fundamentally in line with delivery against the SDGs.

Real effects of auditor conservatism

We examine the effect of auditor conservatism on corporate innovation. We hypothesize that, because conservative auditors constrain income-increasing accounting discretion, managers may sacrifice long-term investments in innovation to boost current earnings and meet short-term performance targets. Exploiting state-level auditor legal liability shocks as a means of identification, we find evidence consistent with this hypothesis. Cross-sectional analyses reveal that the negative effect of increased auditor conservatism on corporate innovation is more pronounced when the client firms are under greater equity- and debt-market pressures, when the client firms are exposed to greater litigation risk, and when the client firms are audited by large auditors. Our study highlights how auditors, as external monitors, can affect not only the financial reporting quality of their clients but may also induce alterations in their real operations.

Nudging Towards Data Equity: The Role of Stewardship and Fiduciaries in the Digital Economy

In this short piece, we posit that data stewards and digital fiduciaries, by enabling greater participation in data-related decisions, can nudge society towards greater social and economic equity. First, we locate data stewards and digital fiduciaries within the broader debate on new data paradigms, and discuss their respective roles at the individual and community level. Drawing from literature on community stewardship of environmental resources, the paper relatedly touches upon possible duties and business models for data stewards and digital fiduciaries. Thereafter, we discuss conceptual and anecdotal links between “ladders” of participation and greater equity in the context of data. While strong links are posited between participation as facilitated by stewards and forms of data equity, there remains a need to establish, research, and evaluate the potential and limitations of data stewards and digital fiduciaries in the “wild.” The paper concludes with specific questions designed to build a body of work that explores the role that stewards/fiduciaries can play in rebalancing power in the data economy.

Plague, Prejudice, and Possibility

This essay explores connections between the fourteenth-century “Black Death” and the current COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the ways in which prejudice and inequality exacerbate their impacts and considering how the upheaval created by catastrophe creates opportunity for greater equity and community, but also exploitation and oppression, depending on human response.

Integrating Workforce Health Into Employer Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Efforts.

Our collective experience with COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter has heightened awareness of deeply embedded racial and socioeconomic disparities in American businesses. This time, perhaps, sustained change is within reach. As organizations advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, an often overlooked focus of is the health status of employees and their families, where equitable access to high-value health benefits offerings should be available to all. This commentary provides guidance for employers to expand their DEI initiatives to include employee and family health and well-being as a central outcome measure. Employers should ensure that DEI efforts incorporate equitable benefits design, and objectively assess benefit design impact on healthcare utilization and cost. Additionally, employers must appreciate the workplace as a significant determinant of health-for lower income workers, in particular-with review of policies and practices to mitigate any discriminatory negative health or well-being impact. Further, race and ethnicity data should be incorporated in health benefits data analysis to understand more clearly the differential outcomes of health management offerings on these different sub-populations. Finally, social needs data should be incorporated into strategic benefits planning to better understand gaps and opportunities to foster greater benefits equity. The provided recommendations can support employer goals of achieving greater equity and value in workforce health, measurably contributing to business success.

Partnering With Oppressive Institutions for Social Change: Roles, Ethics, and a Framework for Practicing Accountability.

Community psychology is driven by the values of social justice, action, and accountability to oppressed groups, with a large body of literature devoted to understanding how to work in partnership with communities through participatory methodologies (e.g., community-based participatory research, participatory action research). However, some community psychologists may work in partnership with oppressive institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system) in order to transform these institutions toward greater equity and justice. In this conceptual review, I explore the unique challenges and opportunities of partnering with oppressive institutions for social change. First, I define oppressive institutions as those that are hierarchy-enhancing under social dominance theory and draw on theories of social change to explain when and why we might choose to partner with these institutions in research and action. I then review case studies of the ethical dilemmas community psychologists have faced in such partnerships. Finally, I propose a conceptual framework for practicing accountability when partnering with hierarchy-enhancing institutions. This framework includes specific practices that research/evaluation teams might incorporate into their relationships with institutional partners and communities impacted by the institution.

Book Review: Civil Society and Social Movements in Food System Governance, Peter Andrée, Jill K. Clark, Charles Z. Levkoe, and Kristen Lowitt, Eds. London and New York: Routledge.

Book review of Civil Society and Social Movements in Food System Governance, Peter Andrée, Jill K. Clark, Charles Z. Levkoe, and Kristen Lowitt, Eds. London and New York: Routledge.
 It is easy to be discouraged by the ecological damages and social inequities caused by the contemporary food regime. Yet editors Peter Andrée, Jill Clark, Charles Levkoe and Kristen Lowitt resist this temptation. While many scholars focus on critiques of food systems, this collection draws attention to co-governance arrangements that contribute to greater equity and sustainability in food systems.
 

Can higher education admission be more equitable? Evidence supporting the inclusion of relative ranking in the process

Many higher education systems require students to take admission exams, which are considered good predictors of academic performance. However, in Latin America, their use has been criticised for promoting socioeconomic segregation and favouring students of higher socioeconomic levels. This research complements the higher education admission process by using alternative measures of relative performance that promote greater equity in the system and allow access to higher education for more vulnerable sectors. A longitudinal study of students in Chile taking the University Selection Test (P.S.U.) and estimations of ordinary least squares (O.L.S.) in two stages were conducted. We found that the use of new measures of performance allows those more vulnerable students from public schools to reach equal and/or superior levels of relative performance than their peers from private schools. The practical implications of this research relate to recognising that good students can also attend public schools and that those students who have the capability can enter higher education, independent of their economic situations.

Gender in Emergency Services: Foundations for Greater Equity in Professional Codes of Ethics

The lack of gender equity in the public sector is a critical issue, especially for emergency services. We explore the gendered nature of firefighting and policing at both professional and organizational levels. We assess gender equity by asking the following questions: (1) How have understandings of gender in emergency services evolved over time? (2) What are the normative implications of emergency services’ lack of gender equity? We draw from feminist literature to critique the lack of progress and examine firefighting and policing histories along with the professional ethics codes of the U.S. Fire Administration and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. This analysis demonstrates the potential to foster greater gender equity in emergency services and other public organizations by suggesting means of improving ethics codes that serve as foundations for organizational cultures, policies, and practices

An Experiment: Voluntary Separation in Indefinitely Repeated Prisoner's Dilemma Game

In economic and social relationships, such as employment and marriages, participants often have the option to separate from their partner. This study experimentally investigates how the option to separate with or without a cost affects cooperation in indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma game. For costly separation, I consider the cost of establishing a new match as well as the opportunity cost of missed interactions due to delays in matching. The theoretical model assumes the coexistence of non-strategic defectors and strategic conditional cooperators and predicts the long-run cooperation rate to which the population converges as players learn the initially unknown type distribution through experience. The experimental data support the theoretical prediction that compared to no separation, costless separation lowers the cooperation rate in the long run. The low cooperation rate and positive assortment through separation from defectors result in greater equity within matches. Costly separation increases the cooperation rate compared to no separation, yet the higher cooperation rate improves efficiency only under the high continuation probability.

Reaching Out, Reaching In: Museum Educators and Radical Transformation

ABSTRACT This article offers a gender/queer, first-person perspective of the necessary role educators play in the link between museums and local communities who have been historically and systemically oppressed (BIPOC, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and intersections therein). By linking racial and labor equity, this article argues for a deeper consideration of the ways museums are activated and transformed through educators’ labor and praxes. In order to create greater equity and to achieve museums’ missions, we must look to educators as leaders in the work of transforming white supremacy culture. This article offers the “handle” as a model for political understanding of how relationships are structured through power and oppression, thereby locating ways we can radically transform our institutions by centering equity, anti-racism, and education. Critical to any social justice work, art is the active space that is essential for creative expression and our holistic well-being.

Hearts and Minds First: Institutional Logics in Pursuit of Educational Equity

Purpose:Despite an explosion of professional development to help educators discuss issues of race and equity, expectations for addressing racial disparities outstrip current leadership practices, and scant empirical research exists on the organizational changes that emerge from the work of equity teams. This study examined equity teams’ theories of organizational change for equity and how those theories related to their efforts to change school policies and practices. Research Methods/Approach: Drawing on institutional logics from organizational theory, this comparative case study examined transcripts and fieldnotes from 22 meetings and 27 interviews with two school equity teams in diverse contexts in the Pacific Northwest. Findings: Despite differences in the principals, team conversations, and organizational contexts, we found that both teams’ discussions asserted a primary theory of change for shifting schools toward greater equity. According to this “commonsense” notion, efforts to become more equitable as a school first require shifts in individuals’ understandings, beliefs, and attitudes—changes to “hearts and minds”— prior to engaging in other actions to address organizational change. Ultimately, our findings suggest that the dominance of a hearts-and-minds-first theory of change constrained changes to organizational policies, structures and practices. Conclusions: Alternative theories of change to catalyze equity-focused organizational shifts hold promise for fostering educational justice. Future participatory design research with schools may yield knowledge of multiyear organizational change.

According to the sustainability theory, the natural rebalance of resources and wealth may continue in global scenario

According to the profile of the sustainability economy, the scenario of the nineteenth century, characterized by a colonial structure governed by the major powers, and the imbalance in the wealth distribution that is recorded in today's world are both phenomena dependent on the deviation of the economy from the path of sustainability with nature. Nevertheless, it is inevitable that this deviation will eventually be corrected, and the global economy should then return to the path of a constant and balanced growth. So, leaving the instability world, which today starts from the performance decline and from the general convergence towards price deflation. The fall in the instability world, however, is far from irreversible because we should admit that deflation is a message telling us that things are going wrong, and the economic situation is a tool that is starting the recession to correct the economy in order to bring it back to the balance with the nature. In the sub-world, unfortunately, there are the excesses of an incoherent distribution of resources at a global level, together with the trend towards the concentration of wealth and income within the 10% of families at a local level. A double interlocking that slows down the development potential locally and globally and alters the democracy mechanisms due to the influence that owners of wealth and large incomes undoubtedly can have on the process of selecting the leadership for the economy management. A perverse mechanism that essentially exacerbates the differences in income and resources among peoples and families. In the perspective of the sustainability economy, the movement favoring the concentration cannot continue because the natural correction mechanism comes into play, thus operating according to the times of nature which are quite different from those of our daily lives. Therefore, we can now interpret and understand the amazing work that is globally reshaping the distribution of resources and culture, where Asia is becoming protagonist together with the West of a greater equity and participation. At the moment Africa remains out of this process, though trying to reinforce its pace. The reactions to the so-called globalization are obstacles to the development of process, on which is depending not only the emergence of post-colonial Africa. Because even the development of the global economy is now linked to the continuation of the natural process of rebalancing resources and wealth, not only at a global level but also at the level of states and continents.

Can Combining Performance-Based Financing With Equity Measures Result in Greater Equity in Utilization of Maternal Care Services? Evidence From Burkina Faso.

Background: As countries reform health financing systems towards universal health coverage, increasing concerns emerge on the need to ensure inclusion of the most vulnerable segments of society, working to counteract existing inequities in service coverage. To this end, selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa have decided to couple performance-based financing (PBF) with demand-side equity measures. Still, evidence on the equity impacts of these more complex PBF models is largely lacking. We aimed at filling this gap in knowledge by assessing the equity impact of PBF combined with equity measures on utilization of maternal health services in Burkina Faso. Methods: Our study took place in 24 districts in rural Burkina Faso. We implemented an experimental design (clusterrandomized trial) nested within a quasi-experimental one (pre- and post-test design with independent controls). Our analysis relied on self-reported data on pregnancy history from 9999 (baseline) and 11 010 (endline) women of reproductive age (15-49 years) on use of maternal healthcare and reproductive health services, and estimated effects using a difference-in-differences (DID) approach, purposely focused on identifying program effects among the poorest wealth quintile. Results: PBF improved the utilization of few selected maternal health services compared to status quo service provision. These benefits, however, were not accrued by the poorest 20%, but rather by the other quintiles. PBF combined with equity measures did not produce better or more equitable results than standard PBF, with specific differences only on selected outcomes. Conclusion: Our findings challenge the notion that implementing equity measures alongside PBF is sufficient to produce an equitable distribution in program benefits and point at the need to identify more innovative and contextsensitive measures to ensure adequate access to care for the poorest. Our findings also highlight the importance of considering changing policy environments and the need to assess interferences across policies.

Scholarship for Social Change: Reflections of an Accidental Academic.

In this article, I describe how I stumbled my way into an academic career doing research to promote social change toward greater equity and inclusion. I reflect on how my path has been informed by my own experiences with harassment, marginalization, and privilege. These reflections build upon the belief that we are all informed by our histories, vantage points, and social locations and that those forces shape the questions we ask, the way we ask them, how and where we look for evidence, and what we do with the results once we get them. My diverse, urban high school experience combined with my circuitous educational path did not portend great potential to become an academic. I describe experiences that expanded my awareness and opened up opportunities to grow and expand upon my role as an activist scholar. Through examples from my own work, I explore three possible functions of research that can contribute to social change: (a) NAMING, which leads to awareness, recognition, and engagement; (b) FRAMING, which expands our view beyond the moment and specific instances and leads to the identification and disruption of constraining contextual circumstances and assumptions; and (c) CATALYZING action, which builds momentum and promotes capacity for action.

Professional development for school leaders in England: decision-making for social justice

ABSTRACT A study of nine headteachers in England, using a research protocol developed and carried out in Ontario, finds implications for the professional development of school leaders with respect to their decision-making to achieve greater equity. The types of professional development that leaders found to be most effective within their particular contexts are identified. The challenges faced by school leaders are explored in relation to their efforts to reduce context-specific achievement gaps. The data generated from semi-structured interviews are examined within the context of the English school system, which is highly neoliberalised and has a performative driven policy landscape. The impact of this context on the practice of school leadership for social justice is discussed and, in particular, how data-based decision-making can be improved through professional development in order to achieve more equitable outcomes, especially for disadvantaged students. The paper has relevance for practitioners in how its findings illuminate professional development practices that school leaders might benefit from and from an argument that reflective and reflexive school leaders are more likely to make objective, critically informed decisions.

Access to Social Determinants of Health and Determinant Inequity for the Black Population in US States in the Early Twenty-First Century.

This analysis develops indices of (1) modifiable social determinants of health and (2) social determinant inequity and applies the indices to the black population in US states. It uses state data available between 2013 and 2018 stratified by black and white race on six social determinants covering a range of topics (high school non-completion, incarceration, non-home ownership,poverty, unemployment, and voter non-registration). Determinants are ranked by state on (1) limited determinant access by blacks and (2) on black-white determinant differences, i.e., inequity. For each state, ranks are summed for each determinant and determinant differences. Greater determinant access and greater equity are found in southern states. More limited access is found in northeastern and western states; lowest ranked of access is found in some midwestern states. Greatest equity is found in southern states; greatest inequity is found in midwestern states. Indices are associated with state rates of black self-reported health. Indices of social determinant access and inequity can be developed and applied to states for US minority populations. The indices promote attention to the differential distribution of social determinants, suggest the consequences of structural racism, and indicate targets for the redress of inequity.

Owning humankind: fossils, humans and archaeological remains

There are a myriad of laws, guidelines and unwritten agreements relating to human, hominid and hominin remains. Legal gaps and inadequate definitions of what constitutes a fossil have meant that a ‘finders keepers’ approach is often applied to the ownership and control of our ancestors' remains. Such shortcomings expose numerous legal and ethical conundrums. Should any one organisation, individual or government control access to recently-found remains, limiting opportunities to unlock the secrets of evolution? Given that humans can start fossilisation processes immediately after burial, at what point does it become appropriate to dig up their remains? And who should control access to them? Could any prehistoric Homo ever have imagined they would one day be exhumed and their remains laid out in cases as the centrepiece of a museum exhibit? This paper surveys a number of implications that arise from these foundational questions, and ultimately challenges the belief that human, hominin and hominid remains are self-evident ‘objects’ capable of clear ownership: rather they constitute creative cultural intersections, which are deserving of greater ethical consideration. Protocols for respecting, protecting and conserving remains while allowing a greater equity in access to information about our common ancestors are both desirable and urgently required.

Impact of a complex gender-transformative intervention on maternal and child health outcomes in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo: protocol of a longitudinal parallel mixed-methods study

BackgroundIn the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) programs targeting women are implemented. In the context of the ‘Mawe Tatu’ program more equitable intra-household decision-making is stipulated by accompanying women’s participation in VSLAs with efforts to engage men for more gender equality, expecting a positive effect of this combined intervention on the household economy, on child nutritional status, on the use of reproductive health services including family planning, and on reducing sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).MethodsA longitudinal parallel mixed method study is conducted among women participating in VSLAs in randomly selected project areas and among a control group matched for socioeconomic characteristics. Descriptive statistics will be calculated and differences between intervention and control groups will be assessed by Chi2 tests for different degrees of freedom for categorical data or by t-tests for continuous data. Structural equation modelling (SEM) will be conducted to investigate the complex and multidimensional pathways that will affect household economic status, child nutritional status and use of reproductive health services. Analysis will be conducted with STATA V.15.Concomitantly, qualitative data collection will shed light on the intra-household processes related to gender power-relations that may be linked to women’s participation in economic activities and may lead to improvements of maternal and child health. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews will be conducted. All narrative data will be coded (open coding) with the help of qualitative data analysis software (Atlas TI).DiscussionWomen’s empowerment has long been identified as being able to bring about progress in various areas, including health. It has been shown that men’s commitment to transforming gender norms is a sinequanone factor for greater equity and better health, especially in terms of reproductive health and child nutrition. This study is one of the first in this genre in DRC and results will serve as a guide for policies aimed at improving the involvement of men in changing attitudes towards gender norms for higher household productivity and better health.

Un largo e inconcluso camino hacia la igualdad sustancial y la necesidad de enfoque de género en las políticas públicas

Being that incursion of women into the labor market and education has led to changes, these do not translate into better conditions; Therefore, the need for a gender approach that allows the design of inclusive social policies that involve men as part of the problem. Thus, in the first order the history regarding the conquest of women’s rights is addressed, which unfortunately have  been more formal than substantial. Second, it addresses how gender stereotypes have perpetuated situations of inequity, hence the need for a gender approach as an instrument of analysis. Third, the need for social public policies with a gender approach that allow redefining spaces, greater equity, equality, substances that allow the enjoyment of women’s rights and greater participation of women in decision-making.