Improving Conceptualization and Measurement of Equity and Identity Groups

• In Event: Methodological Approaches for Equity-Oriented Evidence Synthesis

Abstract

Over the past several years, the focus on equity in education research has grown substantially, as have calls for addressing equity in education research and practice. A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2019) consensus report defines equity as, “the idea that need replaces a mechanistic approach to equality; that the distribution of certain goods and services is purposefully unequal so that the neediest of students may receive more of certain resources, often to compensate or make up for their different starting points.” While equity is defined by need and fairness, the needs of individuals can vary widely, as well as the nature, causes, and solutions of such needs. Accordingly, the approaches to support these groups will also vary. Similarly, the identity groups on which equity focuses often contain sizeable within-group variability in the degree to which they are disadvantaged as well as the nature and extent of their group identification. In short, there is substantial heterogeneity within equity and group identification constructs that is often obscured in much of educational research, and this largely stems from overlaying broad definitions of these constructs.

This paper argues that to achieve meaningful conclusions about equity by way of research syntheses, we need better conceptual and measurement precision for equity and group and identity constructs. Regarding equity, we posit that there are at least three classes of inequity that are important to distinguish: (1) material inequity; (2) social inequity; (3) and ability inequity. Each of these types of inequities relates to a certain type of unmet need that is assumed to constrain a person’s ability to reach their potential. Material inequity concerns unmet needs in the physical domain such as income, food, housing, health care, and physical safety. These are basic unmet needs that constrain students’ and their families’ ability to function. Social inequity refers to unmet needs regarding the formal and informal relationship networks and relational knowledge (e.g., social norms/rules). Ability inequity concerns unmet needs regarding the skills, competences needed to be successful. These needs can arise from a variety of sources such as a disability, poor schooling, or parental abuse/neglect.

Regarding group identity, I argue that the common univariate approaches that rely on one indicator of an individual’s self-reported identity misses much of the core concepts of interest. These concepts include notions of perceived and “objective” disadvantage, identity-centrality, and extent of identification, as well as consequential intersecting demographic characteristics. We focus on racial identity to illustrate these points. Individuals vary considerably on how centered race is their identity milieu (centrality), the extent to which they view race as important in their lives (identification), and the nature of both concepts vary by factors such as class and immigration status. In addition to more holistically conceptualizing racial identity in these ways, we need more use of methodological approaches that are attuned to heterogeneity such as person-centered analyses. Improving such practices will allow for research syntheses to make more nuanced conclusions about how to achieve types of equity across various groups.

Author

• Michael Strambler, Yale School of Medicine