The Relevance of Affirmative Action and the difference between

Diversity and Social Justice Carmen Milagros Vélez VegaAssociate Professor & ChairSocial Sciences Department

University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus

School of Public Health

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?

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).

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

Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu

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.

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.

Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu

Challenging Our Own Comfort Zones,as well as those of our students and colleagues

Action

Threat

Information

Fear

Awareness

Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu

Some DistinctionsDiversity 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

Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu

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

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Some Social Identity Categories

• Sex• Race• Class• Religion• Ability/Disability• Age

• Gender• Sexual

Orientation• Ethnicity• Language• Nationality

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Manifestations of Social Oppression

Racism Sexism

Classism

HeterosexismAgeism

ReligiousOppression

Ableism

TransgenderOppressionEthnocentrism

Examples of Social Identity Categories and Social Group membership

Social Identity Categories Social Group Members

Race Black, White, Asian, Latino, native American, Multiracial

Sex Female, Male, Intersex

Gender Men, Women, Transgender, Genderqueer

Religion Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon, Espiritista, Santería…

Sexual Orientation Lesbian, Gay, bisexual, Heterosexual

Class Owning Class, Poor, Upper Middle, Middle/Middle, Working class

Ability Disabled, Temporarily Able-bodied

Age Elders, Adults, Young People

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

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?

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

Worksheet: in pairs give examples of each of the “5 faces of oppression”

• Exploitation

• Marginalization

• Powerlessness

• Cultural imperialism

• Violence & the normalization of violence

June 9, 2008 21

Worksheet: 5 faces x levelsIndividual Institutional Cultural &

SocietalExploitation

Marginalization

Powerlessness

CulturalImperialism

Violence & normalization of violence

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.

• 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.