Talk 1: Conceptions of Equity
Tuesday, January 17th | 4:30 pm - 5:45 pm
Center for Education Research at Stanford (CERAS), Room 101 | 520 Galvez Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Abstract: Nearly everybody says they are in favor of equity in education. But what are they in favor of when they are in favor of equity? A famous meme using crates, people of different sizes, and a baseball game, contrasts equity, in which everyone gets as many boxes as they need to see the game with equality in which everyone gets the same number of boxes regardless of size. But in the cartoon, equity is really equality of outcome, whereas equality is equality of crates. We explore various plausible ways of understanding equity, and demonstrate that different organisations have different and incompatible understandings of equity, and show why understanding the different ways we conceive of equity matters for decision-making.
Supplemental Reading:
Conceptions of Educational Equity (2022)Talk 2: Instructional Quality is the Most Important and Most Neglected Equity Issue on Campus
Wednesday, January 18th | 4:30 pm - 5:45 pm
Center for Education Research at Stanford (CERAS), Room 101 | 520 Galvez Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Abstract: Students from underrepresented populations deal with numerous indignities on college campuses. Among these is that, on most college campuses, instructional quality is considerably lower than it could easily be. And, while suboptimal instruction harms the learning of all students, students from underrepresented populations are, on average, less well-resourced to compensate, putting them at greater risk than other students of academic failure and other harms. I'll argue that suboptimal instruction is one of the most serious equity issues on campus, an inequity in which faculty are seriously implicated. I'll suggest systemic reforms that would address the inequity, and argue that even without these reforms individual faculty members have a moral obligation to take instruction much more seriously than most currently do.
Please note: a reception will follow the second talk in the CERAS lobby.
These events are sponsored by the Stanford School Graduate of Education, the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, and the Education & the Humanities Workshop. If you have any questions, please contact Caitlin Murphy Brust, PhD Candidate in Philosophy of Education, at cbrust@stanford.edu.
