"Equity Compromises" in Opportunity Provision

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 12:40 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Examining State and National Policy Change: National and International Perspectives (Table 16)

Abstract

Equity-oriented policies do not always work as intended. In this study, I propose the concept of equity compromises and develop a novel framework for how equity-oriented policies may be undermined in practice. To do so, I conduct a grounded theory analysis on qualitative interviews with high school and college practitioners about their experiences implementing an equity-oriented dual enrollment policy that yielded perverse (i.e., negative) outcomes for the target population, low-income students. I propose two mechanisms through which equity-oriented policies fail to reach their aims: maintaining the marginalized group’s structural disadvantage, and maintaining the privileged group’s structural advantage.

Author

• Kaylee T. Matheny, Stanford University