The Relevance of Affirmative Action and the difference between Diversity and Social Justice

1. The Relevance of Affirmative Action and the difference between Diversity and Social Justice Carmen Milagros Vélez Vega Associate Professor & Chair Social Sciences Department University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus School of Public Health

2. Critical Constructionist Framework From a critical constructionist perspective changes in language in and of itself constitutes a means for transformation of social constructions and what results from these. • Social constructions are the shared understandings about our social context. • They are dynamic, we develop them though interaction • They change and can be changed with purpose… For example: What is a Puerto Rican Student, a Student with Disabilities, a Student with an LGBT identity, a Student that comes from an economically challenged background?

4. Social Determinants of Health • SDH are the economic and social conditions that influence the health of individuals, communities, and jurisdictions as a whole (WHO, 2011).

5. SDH include, but are not limited to: (CDC, 2010). • early childhood development; • education, • employment, and work; • food security, • health services • housing, • income, and income distribution; • social exclusion; • the social safety net; • job security; • economic and social conditions

9. Diversity vs Social Justice • The term diversity captures the differences among social groups, but not the ways in which these differences are shaped by systems of domination, subordination, and inequality. Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu

10. Social Justice vs Diversity • The term social justice captures the emphasis upon social structures and practices by which one social group, whether knowingly or unconsciously, exploits other social groups for its advantage. Social justice requires not the elimination of differences, but the elimination of domination, subordination, and inequality.

11. Challenging Our Own Comfort Zones,as well as those of our students and colleagues Action Learning Edge Fear Threat ComfortZone Status Quo Information Awareness Learning Edge Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu

12. Diversity Approaches generally focus on appreciating social differences without analyses of power and privilege or differential access to resources and institutional support needed to live safe, satisfying productive lives Goal is appreciation and awareness Social Justice Education approaches generally focus on understanding the structural dynamics of unequal social power that results in some social groups having privilege, status, access that are denied to other groups. Goal is an understanding and analysis that results in individual and social action to interrupt and/or eliminate oppression Some Distinctions Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu

13. Social Oppression A social condition that establishes and maintains many forms of advantage and disadvantage based on real or presumed social group memberships. Social oppression operates on individual, institutional and societal/cultural levels Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu

14. Some Social Identity Categories Sex Race Class Religion Ability/Disability Age Gender Sexual Orientation Ethnicity Language Nationality

15. Manifestations of Social Oppression Sexism Racism Religious Oppression Ableism Classism Heterosexism Ageism Transgender Oppression Ethnocentrism

16. Examples of Social Identity Categories and Social Group membership

17. Levels of the Manifestations of Oppression intentional and unintentional Individual attitudes and/or behaviors. (e.g. acts of violence, prejudice, ignorance, hatred) Institutional policy, practice, norms Cultural assumptions, norms and practice

18. Conclusions or More Questions? • What must be done to continue correcting these great social injustices and provide opportunities and supports for students that are diverse and oppressed that belong to groups protected under Affirmative Action Policies? • How do we do justice to the demographic and economical changes that have brought to light the many other groups of people that face disparate educational opportunities?

19. A useful tool for exploring the complexity of Diversity vs Social Justice Based on: Five Faces of Oppression by Iris Marion Young, in Justice and the Politics of Difference. This text is available at: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/isoke001/engaging_justice/Five%20Faces%20of%20Oppression.pdf

20. Worksheet: in pairs give examples of each of the “5 faces of oppression” • Exploitation • Marginalization • Powerlessness • Cultural imperialism • Violence & the normalization of violence

21. Worksheet: 5 faces x levels

22. A Systemic and Complex Analysis of Affirmative Action Policies • Taking into consideration the difference between Diversity and Social Justice framework and Policies. • Looking into the complexity of human identities and contexts where ethnicity, sex, and others are frequently intersecting identities in one person.

23. We must consider which are the social and material differences that interfere with opportunities; not only to be admitted to Institutions of Higher Education, but also with the survival in an unfamiliar social context to which we have no reference or map to guide us.