Inequitable Practices Research Articles

Colonialingualism: colonial legacies, imperial mindsets, and inequitable practices in English language education

ABSTRACT Translanguaging and plurilingual approaches in English Language Education (ELE) have been important for envisaging more equitable language education. However, the languages implemented in translanguaging or plurilingual classrooms predominantly reflect the knowledge and belief systems of dominant, nation-state, “official”, and/or colonial languages as opposed to those of endangered and Indigenous languages. This paper contends that privileging dominant colonial knowledges, languages, and neoliberal valorizations of diversity is Colonialingualism. Colonialingualism, covertly or overtly, upholds colonial legacies, imperial mindsets, and inequitable practices. Colonial languages carry colonial legacies and can perpetuate an imperialistic and neoliberal worldview. Languages can be disembodied from place and commodified as mere “resources”, important only for economic “value” rather than cultural importance, in a “modern” global, neoliberal empire. Colonialingualism resides in the “epistemological error” in dominant western thought, characterized by linguistic imperialism and cognitive imperialism; the view that humans are superior to nature; and white (epistemological) supremacy. This “epistemological error” dominates the current mainstream western worldview, institutions, pedagogies, mindsets, and ways of languaging. Colonialingualism is subtractive and detrimental to multilingual, multicultural learners’ identities and heritages; endangered, Indigenous languages and knowledges; minoritized communities; and our environment. This paper argues that: (1) colonialingualism illustrates the “transformative limits” of translanguaging and plurilingualism; and (2) an epistemic “unlearning” of the western “epistemological error” is required to enable equitable use of all languages, languaging processes, and knowledge systems, including those Indigenous and minoritized, in ELE. The example of heritage language pedagogy in the Canadian context will demonstrate how epistemic “unlearning” while languaging can take place.

Inequalities in COVID-19 inequalities research: Who had the capacity to respond?

The COVID-19 pandemic has been testing countries’ capacities and scientific preparedness to actively respond and collaborate on a common global threat. It has also heightened awareness of the urgent need to empirically describe and analyze health inequalities to be able to act effectively. In turn, this raises several important questions that need answering: What is known about the rapidly emerging COVID-19 inequalities research field? Which countries and world regions have been able to rapidly produce research on this topic? What research patterns and trends have emerged, and how to these compared to the (pre-COVID-19) global health inequalities research field? Which countries have been scientifically collaborating on this important topic? Where are the scientific knowledge gaps, and indirectly where might research capacities need to be strengthened? In order to answer these queries, we analyzed the global scientific production (2020–2021) on COVID-19 associated inequalities by conducting bibliometric and network analyses using the Scopus database. Specifically, we analyzed the volume of scientific production per country (via author affiliations), its distribution by country income groups and world regions, as well as the inter-country collaborations within this production. Our results indicate that the COVID-19 inequalities research field has been highly collaborative; however, a number of significant inequitable research practices exist. When compared to the (pre-COVID-19) global health inequalities research field, similar inequalities were identified, however, several new dynamics and partnerships have also emerged that warrant further in-depth exploration. To ensure preparedness for future crises, and effective strategies to tackle growing social inequalities in health, investment in global health inequalities research capacities must be a priority for all.

The Importance of Being “Woke”: Charter Management Organizations and the Growth of Social Consciousness as a School Quality Marker

Charter management organizations (CMOs) have increasingly had to respond to questions surrounding their organizations—particularly in the context of the broader social awakening around systemic injustices and evidence of their racially inequitable practices. This study investigated how CMOs counteracted criticisms and managed perception by characterizing their organizations as socially and racially conscious. It compared social media content for one CMO population during two time periods that surround the 2016 election: 2014 to 2016 and 2017 to 2019. Findings suggest that the CMOs have increasingly characterized themselves as socially conscious, but their attentiveness to issues of race and racism remained temporally and topically bounded. The article concludes with a discussion of how CMOs’ evolving discourse may influence public perception and considers how CMOs perpetuate a form of neoliberal multiculturalism that normalizes market reform under the discursive cover of a bounded articulation of equity and racial justice.

Comedy clubs that platform marginalised identities: Prefigurative politics in Sophie Duker’s Wacky Racists

Wacky Racists is, in the words of its creator, Sophie Duker, ‘not a night for actually wacky, actual racists’. It is one of a number of clubs which provide a platform for identities and perspectives that are marginalised on the British comedy circuit. This article demonstrates that such ‘platforming clubs’ can be considered as prefigurative spaces, drawing upon Raekstad and Gradin’s model of prefigurative politics. Using Wacky Racists as a case study, it is argued that these clubs pose a necessary challenge to dominant industry practices by building an alternative to them. Their impact exists in their capacity to expose a range of harmful and inequitable practices, to demonstrate that these are unnecessary, and to provide the living and viable alternatives that, as Raekstad and Gradin argue, are a precondition of change.

Is teaching anti-Black racism relevant when recreating a post-COVID nursing curriculum?

Abstract During the COVID-19 pandemic several issues were galvanized as global urgencies. One of which was racism, following reports that Black and low-income communities were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2021) and the lack of race-based data in Canada (Ahmed et al.,2021). But it was the racially induced killing of George Floyd and others that brought global awareness through the Black Lives Matter movement of the extent of structural and institutional racism. We witnessed a convergence of protests regarding anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Asian racism, and more recently Islamophobia. These series of events have led to emerging and compelling questions from millennials and Generation Zs within the nursing classroom. Nursing education is called to embrace and draw upon multiple forms of pedagogies, methodologies, and theories that reflect and support student learning and enquiry (Coleman, 2020; Prendergast et al., 2020;). Nursing education’s longstanding history with colonial frameworks, practices, and standards (Holmes, 2008; McGibbon et al, 2014; Waite & Nardi, 2019), attests to the need to decolonize the nursing classroom, which in effect will decolonize colonial practices within clinical settings. One approach to assist nursing education in the classroom and workplace setting is introducing anti-Black racism (ABR) within the nursing curricula. ABR was coined by Akua Benjamin (2003) to explain the historical, lived experiences of African Canadians, and how colonial legacies in policies and institutions continue to mask racist practices. ABR creates spaces of resistances that can protect recipients and providers of the healthcare system and can disclose and rupture any invisible forms of inequitable practices. Based on the four tenets of ABR, which are, history, experience, invisibility, and legacy, ABR creates critical thinking and dialogues across multiple barriers, therefore providing opportunities for transformative learning and action. By implementing ABR within the nursing curricula, nurses may gain meaningful insights into the various ways racism plays out in the lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour by engaging the student into historical events and lived experiences that expound on varied forms of physical, mental and social enslavements. This presentation will conceptually illustrate the relevance of implementing anti-Black racism within Canadian nursing curricula as an effective strategy that can respond to issues pervading the current climate as well as support student learning and development. As nursing has an ethical responsibility to prepare and educate students to care and protect patients, nursing is also called upon to decolonize its classroom, reform educators and students, and create new practices that will reflect a new, post covid curricula.

An Argument for Administrative Critical Consciousness in Public Administration

Recent public administration scholarship has been challenging the unresponsiveness of leaders due to their unethical and inequitable practices. To address this challenge, this article presents an administrative critical consciousness (ACC) framework to purposefully identify and address societal oppressions. ACC derives from Paulo Freire’s critical consciousness and focuses on the ability for individuals to identify and act against an oppressive regime. ACC is a conceptual lens for leaders to acknowledge and intentionally dismantle the longstanding inequities manifested in their institutions and organizations. The authors explore the relationship between engagement, empathy, ethics, and equity in ACC. When administrators utilize an ACC perspective they essentially become more engaged and empathetic, optimistically resulting in more ethical and equitable practices within society. Lastly, the authors describe how ACC occurs when administrators engage in critical consciousness to support and implement transformative action.

No Safe Space: School Climate Experiences of Black Boys With and Without Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Black boys often experience oppression and marginalization in schools. Black boys with disabilities in secondary school are frequently targeted with inequitable and biased discipline practices, exacerbating the school-to-prison pipeline. As such, it is important to examine the school climate experiences of Black boys to inform the creation of safe, predictable and affirming school environments. Using Critical Race Theory and Dis/ability Critical Race Studies as a framework, the current study examined the school climate experiences of Black boys with and without emotional and behavioral disorders (N = 16,031). Overall perceptions of school climate were similar across groups, but moderation analyses demonstrated that Black boys with EBD reported significantly more peer victimization and lower levels of peer support, order and discipline, and safety than Black boys without EBD. Disability classification also moderated the relationship between peer victimization and cultural acceptance, physical environment, order & discipline, and safety with the relationship being significant and negative for Black boys with EBD. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Impact Statement It is critical that we examine the intersectional experiences of Black boys with and without disabilities in schools. This study found that Black boys experience low levels of cultural acceptance in their schools and Black boys with disabilities reported lower levels of peer support and more peer victimization than Black boys without disabilities. As such, we must center these students’ experiences in the creation of safe and affirming school environments for them.

An Indigenous Community’s Fight for Cultural Continuity and Educational Equity With/In and Against a New England School District

Background/Context: Indigenous communities of the “Americas” have a long history of exercising sovereignty over and self-determination in the education of their children that predates colonial invasion. This was disrupted by the advent of colonial education and its assimilationist aims, and Indigenous communities have been in an ongoing battle to reclaim and recenter Indigenous knowledge, culture, and values in teaching and learning. This research describes one community’s fight for cultural revitalization and educational equity in the schools their children attend. Focus of Study/Research Questions: This study explored Indigenous parents’ and community leaders’ engagement within, against, and beyond the public schools their children attend, centering their perspectives, priorities, and practices. It explored the questions: What are Indigenous parents’ and community leaders’ engagement practices? Are their engagement practices culturally sustaining/revitalizing? How so, and/or why not? Setting: The research site was a small New England school district and town that is home to a Wampanoag tribe that has inhabited the area for 12,000 years and whose children represent the largest group of students of color in the local public schools. Research Design: This qualitative, exploratory case study foregrounded, privileged, and normalized Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing in research using Indigenous protocols, such as relationality and relational accountability, and Indigenous methodologies that included semi-structured conversations and talking circles. Findings/Results: Together, Native parents, through their focus on inequitable and exclusionary practices, and Native community leaders, through their mission to expand language and culture-centric curricula and programming, are challenging and fighting to change the overall objectives of colonial education in the schools their children attend. Separately, Native parents are experiencing more resistance from educators for their failure to comply with racialized and classist rules and expectations of engagement. Moreover, the advocacy efforts of Native leaders may be hampered by a lack of parent and student voice and contributions. Conclusions/Recommendations: We learned from the participants in this study that merging efforts and collectively holding schools accountable may be an essential move in creating and sustaining an education system that meets all their wishes and needs. This includes viewing parents and students as valuable knowledge holders who should be consulted and listened to in matters that concern and impact them. In addition, local school districts must do more than just respond affirmatively to and support community members’ initiative(s); they must also be the initiators and funders of changes that dismantle policies, practices, curricula, programming, and instruction that uphold a colonized school system.

Toward resourcefulness: Pathways for community positive health

Abstract Communities play a central role in strengthening their health, but conventional community health promotion often adopts paternalistic and top-down approaches. Conversely, agentic approaches are critiqued for tasking marginalized communities to create change without opportunities. Taking into consideration these shortcomings, we ask how communities may be most effectively and appropriately supported in their pursuit of health. We review community health literature to articulate how community health is understood, moving from negative to positive conceptions; determined, moving from a risk-factor orientation to social determination; and promoted, moving from conventional to agentic approaches. We develop the concept of resourcefulness as a pathway to strengthen positive health, and explore how this approach may be applied in diverse communities through fieldwork in Kenya, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and the US. Through resourcefulness-based approaches to community health, communities cultivate agency to 1) conceptualize what constitutes their health and assets and 2) pursue and sustain health agendas driven by local priorities, needs, and learning, while they also work to 3) change power imbalances that drive inequitable patterns of resource distribution and 4) nurture ecologically sound relationships with their local environment. We discuss how resourcefulness addresses tensions between resource use and sustainability, and how communities leverage partnerships for change. We make practical suggestions to apply resourcefulness as a process-based, place-based, and relational strategy, while recognizing that contexts and scale matter and limit the viability of community-based solutions. Key messages Resourcefulness-based strategies can forge new pathways to sustainable and self-sustaining community positive health. Resourcefulness builds on agentic approaches, but it also challenges inequitable power relations and environmental practices that degrade local capacities for health.

COVID-19 Pandemic: Inequities in Higher Education and Impact on U.S College Students’ Failing Mental Health

In spring 2020, COVID-19 arrived in the United States and forced the shutdown of nearly all postsecondary institutions. Most college students returned home to participate in virtual learning. For many learners, additional precautions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and reduce infection rates, including stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and quarantine, reinforced the experience of social isolation. In turn, college students’ mental health deteriorated with the disconnect from formal and informal social supports. Moderate-to-severe anxiety and depression were the most common psychological symptoms. Coping mechanisms included increased substance abuse, social media usage, and reframing of the situation. Most college students did not seek mental health services, even if aware of services on their campuses. Barriers included social stigma, limited access to services, and minimizing of symptoms. Vulnerable populations, for example, racial and ethnic minorities and low income learners, were at even greater risk for poorer mental health outcomes due to additional social and economic factors. Sometimes, too, inequitable practices at colleges and universities hindered the stability and betterment of students’ mental wellbeing. In response, recommendations are provided for college administration to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Does the nursing curriculum influence feelings of gender-role conflict in a cohort of nursing degree male students?

It is estimated that more than 9% of the global nursing workforce is male and that this share will gradually rise over the next decade. Although there are some positive aspects of having a male nursing workforce, men in the profession still experience discriminatory behaviours and practices. Fortunately, this does not deter a number of men entering undergraduate degree programmes. The aim of this study was to understand the experiences of 14 male nursing students in their first year of the adult Bachelor of Nursing programme. Using the Inventory of Male Friendliness in Nursing Programs and the Gender Role Conflict Scale, this study found that the male students felt welcomed, supported and included into the nursing programme. In addition, they felt no overall gender-role conflict, although feelings of success and achievement caused some challenges. The results of this study suggest that the male students did not necessarily experience those inequitable behaviours and practices reported in the literature. It has been suggested that perhaps the reality of clinical practice may change the perception of nursing for male students. Therefore, implications for further research could include a longitudinal study to ascertain where the perceptions of the nursing programme change for the male nursing students over time.

Strategizing assessment to support emerging bilingual students: a focus on the home language

Abstract Both educators and students in the United States feel the continuous pressure to improve achievement scores as a form of validation for their work and success. However, emerging bilingual (EBs) learners encounter barriers within assessments that break the assumptions of validity, reliability, and fairness and prevent them from demonstrating their true knowledge. This is worsened when assumptions about EBs' academic capacity are extracted from those assessment results. This paper focuses on the use of assessment for and as learning for emerging bilingual (EB) students. Specific attention is given to the use of the students' home language as a resource in evaluating their knowledge and how teachers may address some of the inequitable practices to prepare EBs not only to be successful academically, but to demonstrate it in today's assessment world.

Development of the India Patriarchy Index: Validation and Testing of Temporal and Spatial Patterning

While existing indices of gender equality measure the role of women’s status and position, they inadequately contextualize the broader construct of patriarchy, a social system that underlies many gender inequitable practices. An index capturing patriarchy may afford increased understanding of this social system, and may serve to complement other gender equality indices. This paper involves the development and testing of a novel composite measure, the India Patriarchy Index, to quantify the social and ideological construct of patriarchy using empirical data on family structure and gender roles. Using data from India’s National Family Health Survey, we develop an India Patriarchy Index to measure gendered social positioning in families based on sex by age, patrilocality, sex ratio imbalance among offspring, and gendered economic roles. Psychometric testing demonstrates good internal reliability and construct validity of this index, with validity indicated by its association with three gender equality indices used in India. Spatial and temporal analyses further indicate much state-level variation in India Patriarchy Index scores as well as slow change on this indicator over time, based on time trend analyses from 1992–93 to 2015–16. Results demonstrate the utility of the India Patriarchy Index to measure and track gender equality progress in India.

Promoting Privilege

Point of view: I am a cisgender, White male in my sixties. I retired recently after working with children in a professional capacity since the mid-1970s. My first career involved organizing and managing youth sports programs for public recreation departments. I began my second career as an elementary school teacher in the privileged white neighborhood where I grew up near Atlanta, Georgia. There were no African American students at any of the public schools I attended. By the time I took a position in the central office after teaching for 14 years, Black students comprised 77% of the county’s 98,000 students (Anderson & Smith-Hunt, 2005). I spent my last six years in the classroom teaching fifth graders and serving as the school’s gifted liaison teacher. In the latter role, I administered tests to students to determine if they were eligible for the “gifted” label. At that time, I also taught an assessment course to teachers who were seeking a gifted add-on endorsement to their teaching certificates. I recently retired from a large school district in a different state after working as an educational measurement and assessment specialist for 12 years. Value: Numerous educational policies and procedures in the United States benefit children from privileged families over their traditionally underserved counterparts, which include students of color and low-income students. This piece describes a public school district’s inequitable practices related to its program for gifted students, practices that are not uncommon in many American school districts. “Education is one of the best ways to address systemic inequities, but education systems in the US seem to be increasingly subject to criticism that they are unable to change and promote equity” (Cheville, 2018, p. 1). Despite their inherent resistance to change, educational agencies must be made aware of discriminatory policies and procedures. Stakeholders must then hold policy makers and educational leaders to account. As James hanged until it is faced” (1962, p. 38). Summary: Gifted education programs in public schools comprise mainly middle-class and upper-middle-class students of European and Asian descent. Students from low socioeconomic groups, African American students, Latinx students, and Indigenous American students continue to be underrepresented in gifted programs, despite the fact that this inequity was brought to light many years ago (Ford, 1998). Given our nation’s long history of overt and covert racism, it is not surprising that the manner by which students are identified for gifted services is systemically entrenched and at the heart of the problem. Most states have mandates or provide guidance to local school districts regarding identification criteria; however, very few of the measurement instruments and methods used to evaluate of children for gifted services are effective at facilitating equal representation of all groups in gifted education programs. This piece examines one school district’s guidelines used to identify students for gifted services, including admittance to its prestigious school for gifted children. Because the guidelines are typical of practices employed by many other school districts, the information contained herein is generalizable to a larger audience.

Entrapment Between Narratives: The Millennial Voice and Degendering Organizational Resilience

The Covid-19 pandemic pushes organizations to innovate, adapt, and be responsive to new conditions. These demands are exacerbated as organizations respond to the triple sustainability challenge of social and environmental issues alongside economic recovery. These combined factors highlight the need for an inclusive definition of organizational resilience, the increased agility to adapt, learn, and transform to rapidly shifting external and internal conditions. This paper explores a gendered perspective of organizational resilience and the implications for degendering the concept to incorporate masculine and feminine constructs equally valuable to the theory and practices of organizational resilience during times of crisis. Viewing the organizational demands of crisis and the expectations of the millennial workforce through the degendering lens elucidates conceptualizations of gender constructions and power that limit inclusive practices and processes of organizational resilience. Data was used from focus groups of men and women between the ages of 21–35 (millennials) who have experience in the workplace and a shared knowledge of sustainability including social aspects of gender equity and inclusion. The Degendering Organizational Resilience model (DOR) was used for analysis to reveal barriers to inclusive, resilient organizational practices. The data was organized according to the three aspects of the DOR, power structures, gendering practices, and language. A unique contribution of this study is that it explores a cross-cultural gender perspective of organizational resilience focused on a specific cohort group, the millennials. Based on the findings three organizational recommendations for practice were identified. These include recommendations for policies and practices that deconstruct inequitable practices and co-create more agile structures, practices, and narratives for sustainable and resilient organizations.

Pandemic Eugenics: Discrimination, Disability, & Detention during COVID-19

The hidden blueprint of eugenics continues to shape the treatment of captive and vulnerable populations throughout the recent pandemic. Though nominally discredited, eugenic thinking continues to guide our twenty-first-century incarceration policies and our discriminatory treatment of detained, disabled, and neglected populations. During COVID-19, this unrecognized reliance on eugenics has been at the root of a cascade of disasters: disregard for the welfare of the incarcerated, who have fought COVID-19 without supplies, social distancing ability, or compassionate release; hospital rationing policies limiting use of ventilators, hospital beds, and other medical devices by disabled and elderly individuals; the skyrocketing death toll in nursing and long-term care homes; and the profound neglect of group home residents, including children in foster care and the cognitively and developmentally disabled.These inequitable practices follow a pattern consistent with the philosophy of eugenics. Our society has isolated a class of “unfit” and “unvalued” people, whose lives and dignity are treated as less worthy than others. This Article reveals the hidden eugenic thinking supporting our mistreatment of disabled, captive, and vulnerable individuals during the pandemic, and proposes broad and longer-lasting solutions to this legacy of discrimination.

The Zero Waste University Program in Mexico: A Model for Grassroots Innovations in Sustainability

Grassroots innovations for sustainability can take various forms, including novel models for comprehensive waste management. This article examines the contributions of the University Solid Waste Management Program with a Zero Waste approach, a grassroots innovation established by the community of a university campus associated with a non-governmental organization. The program was developed in Cuernavaca, Mexico, in a political and economic context marked by unsustainable and inequitable practices, but with a long history of social struggle for the construction of alternatives. In analytical terms, we study the formation and mutual influence of the sustainability niches of both organizations from the perspective of strategic niche management theory, as well as the benefits resulting from such development.

Crafting a pedagogical third space in a transnational teacher education project

This study documented a month-long study abroad project in Oaxaca, Mexico during the summer of 2018 for twelve, K-12 pre-service and in-service educators from New Jersey, where they studied Spanish, literacy, and culturally responsive pedagogical practices. Using notions of third spaces as theory and pedagogy, the findings challenge and expand notions of US transnational teacher education and suggest that transnational teacher education may be particularly useful for facilitating third spaces for pre-service and in-service educators to confront inequitable practices and question their language and literacy ideologies and pedagogical practices.

Association between gender disadvantage factors and postnatal psychological distress among young women: A community-based study in rural India

ABSTRACT Common mental health disorders are studied extensively among adult women globally. However, they remain under-researched among young women. This study aims to determine whether gender disadvantage factors are associated with psychological distress among young women in rural India, where the child sex ratio is lower than the national average. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in rural Pune, India. A total of 229 young married women who had a live birth in the last 12 months were screened for psychological distress. The predictors of psychological distress were estimated using multivariable logistic regression analyses. Psychological distress was found among 50 respondents (21.9%). Young women who were married before 18 years had 2.19 times higher odds of distress than women who were married after 18 years. Young women who gave birth to a female infant had 2.43 times higher odds of distress than those who gave birth to a male infant. Lack of partner support and experience of postnatal health complications were other predictors. Study findings ascertain the role of gender disadvantage factors in causing psychological distress. From a public health perspective, early identification and treatment of psychological distress, is imperative, along with addressing gender inequitable practices.

Urban environmental justice movements in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

ABSTRACT Environmental justice oriented movements have emerged in various cities throughout the world in response to environmental hazards impacting urban residents. This article draws on a case study from Yogyakarta in Indonesia and refers to environmental justice movement theories in chronicling protests from local civil society actors in regard to scarcity of water resources and the demands for urban development policies and practices that are based on environmental justice regarding fairness in distribution, recognition of diverse participants, and public participation. The civil society actions in Yogyakarta are focused on demanding equal access to water resources, recognition of the voices and aspirations of citizens, and the provision of adequate space for the participation of urban residents. This article argues that civil society actors have the capacity to create platforms for environmental justice and resistance to inequitable and unsustainable urban development practices.