Equity And Equality Teaching Philosophy
This paper reviews the historical context of the separate but equal doctrine up to the Brown v Board of Education (1954, 1955) decision. Then the paper discusses the difference between equality and equity by using a graphic showing the usefulness of a bicycle to a diverse group of people. The paper then demonstrates the problem with merit-based equality in education, and how the solution is equity oriented. Next a definition of social justice is given, and social justice education is discussed in a Freirean view of praxis, which is used as a tool for students, and for the discussion of schools as a perpetuator of class and mediator of inequality. Finally the paper talks about this author’s personal experiences that shaped the views given in the paper.
Introduction
Equity and Equality are often seen as synonymous, yet this is simply untrue. Through examination of a graphic and examples of each, a distinct definition of each is created. These definitions are used to explore the pursuit of equality or equity in educational contexts and how contemporary and historical approaches to equality and equity should inform educators’ teaching philosophies. Furthermore, equity and equality are then used as the basis for social justice in schools. As a preservice high school teacher, the distinction of equality and equity are especially important to nurture development for more inclusive teaching philosophy that lends to teaching methods that meet the needs of the diverse students in the United States so that all students can reach their potential and have valuable opportunities upon high school graduation.
Alchemy of Elements
Equality of people in the United States emerges after the civil war amendments to the constitution that were passed between 1865 and 1870. Made up of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, these amendments abolished slavery, granted people equal protection under the law no matter their race, and banned disenfranchisement due to race, respectively. These occurred alongside Reconstruction, which, among other things, built segregated public schools for African Americans. While this was a step towards educating all people, it by no means represented equality. As a result, the Supreme Court heard several cases, the first major case was Plessy v Ferguson (1896) which argued that the separate but equal doctrine and racial discrimination were unconstitutional under the fourteenth amendment. The Supreme Court did not interpret the law this way, and instead ruled that the fourteenth amendment only granted equal protection under the law and not equality in the domains of society and politics, and, as a result, protected the separate but equal doctrine and racial discrimination. After this decision, the United States changed drastically through the Progressive Era where women were granted the right to vote, and two world wars were fought. Amongst the civil rights movement, the courts heard Brown v Board of Education (1954, 1955) and reached the decision that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. Chief Justice Warren stated in 1954, as the opinion of the court, the “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal”. While this formally ended segregation, racial discrimination was still salient in the desegregated schools, and there certainly was no sense of equity for students with greater needs.
Equity vs. Equality
Equality is where the exact same thing is provided to everyone regardless of how what is provided will meet the needs of those people, this is portrayed by the bicycle not being suitable for the person riding it in the top of the image. Equity is then providing different goods or services so that everyone can have fair and equal opportunity and experiences, this is where different bicycles were given to the people so that they could all use it equally. Equity is then a doctrine of inclusion that recognizes the unique needs of people when serving them. For students this means that schools should work to provide all students with the same opportunities, even though their educational journeys might be very different. This is particularly important for students in high-needs schools and communities, where the student is working against factors that would make it hard for them to have the same opportunities as other student groups, because these students need school services and instruction that specifically address their needs in order for them to have the same opportunities as more privileged students. This could mean that a school would need to hire language specialists to coteach a population of Spanish speaking students to facilitate better understanding of content that would have otherwise been delivered in English. Schools commonly track students by identifying those that aren’t succeeding and offering differentiated instruction, yet Lois Weis argues that tracking often leads to poor academic outcomes and unequal class time at the disadvantage of the lower ability groups. This is particularly problematic for young students, Shields, Newman and Satz say that some abilities must be nurtured in all children, such as reading, and therefore tracking based on ability of young children is damaging.
Equality is often thought of in terms of having enough materials to educate properly, yet this is a narrow view of the term. Equality in schools is also an equality of educational outcomes. As Shields, Newman and Satz state, often educational equality is based on merit, yet opportunities to develop merit are not equally distributed. This merit is often measured by number of students who take higher level courses, who pass end of course exams, ACT scores and college entrance statistics, and school attendance. Yet to have equality in these is to improve the equity of education for different groups so that schools have more comparable numerical data. Identification of underperforming schools then should have a response involving a critical analysis of the school’s population and curriculum to identify the students’ needs and designing a reform to address them, including differentiated resources and teaching methods.
Definition of Social Justice
Social justice is the questioning of power structures and institutionalized oppression and discrimination and the subsequent action to create new structures that promote social change, notably for the equity of people from all backgrounds. This involves the self-reflection of educators with the purpose of eliminating their own prejudices. This is critical as people can be exposed to prejudice in their upbringing, and be unaware how this shapes the way they interact with the world, yet by way of self-reflection, people can understand the lens with which they view the world and make changes to rid themselves of prejudice. Freire (1970) advocates for critical consciousness, a sense of deepened awareness of the world around them, which allows people to express social discontents because they are a part of oppressive circumstance, and in this way, people can obtain freedom. Along with this Freire says action must be taken, as one without the other is worthless, he defines reflection and action as praxis. In this way, educators must engage their students in praxis, not just verbalism or activism, but the combined practice of reflecting on a specific injustice and taking actions to rectify it. An example was found in an interview conducted by Mthethwa-Sommers (2013), citing that unskilled work doesn’t pay enough to pay for childcare, so it’s more affordable to be on welfare and take care of your own kids. A praxis approach would first try to understand the problem such as looking at the requirements of welfare, minimum wage, and access to childcare in different neighborhoods, and then address the issues found through action. This could include changing the requirements of welfare to not have people have to choose between working and not having enough money for childcare, or having welfare, but not being able to work and therefore not developing skills to get higher wages. Schools serve to reproduce and maintain class inequalities rather than challenge them. This is potentially mediated through a latent curriculum that values the beliefs of the majority class and minimizes the identities of minorities.
Reform that is focused on antiracism, that is antibiased; that recognizes talents and strengths of diverse students as tools to their academic success; backed by critical pedagogy; that is bottom-up with input from teachers, parents and students; and that is rooted in high expectations and rigorous standards for all students, can challenge the inequalities schools perpetuate. By way of praxis, schools can observe and reflect on the power structures present within the classroom, school and community, and action can be taken in challenging the existence of structures of oppression and working to solve them. One such case is in the removal of Algebra 1 Honors classes in favor of a combined Algebra 1 class, this is supported by Weis who states, “differential access to rigorous math courses is directly linked to college attendance”.
Experiences That Shaped My Understanding
The biggest factor in the development of my understanding of equity and social justice was in the struggles my parents went through in order to be successful. We moved from country to country in search of better opportunities, and we finally settled in the United States. My parents struggled to get decent paying jobs as they have no formal college education, yet through my father’s own tenacity he was able to work his way up from installing hotel front desk computer systems, to being vice president of sales in large companies making multi-million dollar deals and being granted an honorary college degree. He had bosses that were half his age and he told me these were the people who went to college and as a result they found success decades earlier than my dad did and that I have to go to college. Thus, I took pride in my education and wanted to learn as much as I could to avoid the poverty my parents struggled with. This is a somewhat common theme in immigrant communities, that families move to create better opportunities for their children, and I want to bring the level of rigorous education to these students that my father found for me here in the United States.
As a tutor I have found that many students struggle with teachers that either do not connect with their students and create quality learning, or they have lazy instruction practices such as watching Kahn-Academy and then doing an assignment, or they do not teach with the rigor that mathematics requires so that students can generalize knowledge from one math course to the next. That is why my philosophy in equity and social justice teaching involves an emphasis on the rigorous nature of these educational reforms. Students of all backgrounds have the ability to succeed, so I believe that with quality instruction and high expectations, all students can, with time and effort, achieve real success in mathematics.
