The AWSP Equity Guide Vocabulary

Regardless of your school leader title, racially-literate leaders actively pursue a deep understanding of their own individual racial identity, continually hone their ability to recognize structural and systemic racism, and courageously change the status quo. This AWSP Equity Guide is designed to help you grow your racial equity skills and understanding, and to support your learning and the learning of others.

Equity Guide: Vocabulary List

Ableism: Is the intentional or unintentional discrimination or oppression of individuals with disabilities. Social habits, practices, regulations, laws, and institutions that operate under the assumption that disabled people are inherently less capable overall, less valuable in society, and/or should have less personal autonomy than is ordinarily granted to people of the same age. Any statement or behavior directed at a disabled person that denigrates or assumes a lesser status for the person because of their disability. 

Allyship: An active, consistent, and arduous practice of unlearning and re-evaluating, in which a person in a position of privilege and power seeks to operate in solidarity with a marginalized group.

• Co-conspirator:  Must not only be allies who recognize the impact of racism on People of Color, but also active agents of change that realize their own stake in eradicating white supremacy.

Belonging: Being socially positioned in ways that give access to power and resources. 

Color blindness: Any policy, practice or behavior that uses the power of the dominant racial group to deny recognition of differences to the oppressed group. 

Critical consciousness: The ability to recognize and analyze systems of inequality and the commitment to take action against these systems.

Culture: The ways that we each live our lives; including values, language, customs, behaviors, expectations, ideals governing child rearing, the nature of friendship, patterns of handling emotions, social interaction rate, notions of leadership etc.

Cultural blindness: Any policy practice or behavior that ignores existing cultural differences or that considers such differences inconsequential. 

Culturally responsive teaching: A pedagogy grounded in teachers’ displaying cultural competence: skill at teaching in a cross-cultural setting. Using this method encourages learners to relate course content to their cultural context.  It recognizes the importance of including learners’ cultural references in all aspects of learning, enriching the lived classroom experiences and keeping learners engaged. 

Diversity: All the differences between us based on which we experience advantages or encounter barriers to opportunities. Diversity isn’t just about racial differences. 

Epistemology: Is a way of knowing. It is concerned with anything that informs or influences us in how we learn and understand what we believe is real. 

• Community-based epistemology: Ways that parents and students understand and interpret the world. Historically marginalized communities that have been oppressed see schools as official institutions that represent governmental structures due to their lived experiences. Educators understanding communities’’ perspectives, community interests can be placed at the center of all education decisions and reforms.

• School-based epistemology: Ways that educators have sole discretion to decide what is acceptable behavior and good learning in schools.  Historically educators have had exclusive power to define how students and families are characterized and treated.

Equity/Equitable: Allocating resources to ensure everyone has access to the same opportunities. Equity recognizes that advantages and barriers – the ‘isms’ – exist; the act of developing, strengthening, and supporting procedural and outcome fairness in systems, procedures, and resource distribution mechanisms to create equitable (not equal) opportunity for all people. Equity has a focus on eliminating barriers that have prevented the full participation of historically and currently oppressed groups. Equitable systems are those in which outcomes are not determined by an individual’s race/ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, income, citizenship, or other social status.

Gender bias: Refers to a person receiving different treatment based on the person’s real or perceived gender identity.

Historically underserved students: Acknowledges external forces that have not served an individual student or population well (see also marginalized).

Homophobia: An aversion or hostility to, disdain for, or fear of gay sexual orientation or gay people.

Inclusion: Fostering a sense of belonging by centering, valuing, and amplifying the voices, perspectives, and styles of those who experience more barriers based on their identities;  the presence of all students in the same classroom and in all school settings leading to a sense of belonging and is realized when all students regardless of their special education needs are in the general education classroom and engage in core curriculum to the maximum extent appropriate and meaningful. 

Intersectionality: Each of us is made up of multiple aspects of identity (such as race, gender, sex, disability/ability, national origin, and religion) and these intersectionalities are integral to our sense of self. The combination of one’s intersectionalities contributes to an individual’s  lived experiences. 

Ism: An “ism” refers to systems of inequality that marginalize and oppress people based on their sociocultural identities. Most common isms include racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, and ableism. Isms are a combination of two things: prejudice and power. 

Justice: Dismantling barriers to resources and opportunities in society so that all individuals and communities can live a full and dignified life. 

Lived experiences: Representation and understanding of an individual’s human experiences, choices, and options and how those factors influence one’s perception of knowledge based on one’s own life.

Othered: Perceived as not belonging.

Marginalized: To put or keep someone in a powerless or unimportant position within a society or group. 

Marginalized communities: Groups that have been underserved or disenfranchised, they have been denied full access to rights, opportunities and resources that are normally available to members of a different group.

Person First language: Person first language or people first language (PFL) prioritizes the personhood of the people rather than their identity.  Using identity first language reinforces the labels placed on individuals rather than their status as people.

Race: The socially constructed meaning attached to a variety of physical attributes including but not limited to skin and eye color, hair texture, and bone structure of people in the US and elsewhere.  

Racial equity: The condition that would be achieved if one’s racial identity no longer predicted, in a statistical sense, how one fares. When we use the term, we are thinking about racial equity as one part of racial justice, and thus we also include work to address root causes of inequities, not just their manifestation. This includes elimination of policies, practices, attitudes, and cultural messages that reinforce differential outcomes by race or fail to eliminate them.

Racial identity: The notion of race is a social construct designed to divide people into groups ranked as superior and inferior. The scientific consensus is that race, in this sense, has no biological basis – we are all one race, the human race. Everyone  is assigned a racial identity whether they are aware of it or not. It is composed of two parts; externally imposed as in,  “how do others perceive me?” and internally constructed, “how do I identify myself?”  We are all awarded certain privileges and or disadvantages because of our race whether or not we are conscious of it.

Racially literate:  Peoples’ capacity to understand and critique how race works in our society; the ability to read, recast, and resolve racially stressful encounters.  

Racism: The conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional, enactment of racial power, grounded in racial prejudice, by an individual or group against another individual or group perceived to have lower racial status.  The interplay of policies, practices, and programs of differing institutions which leads to adverse outcomes and conditions for communities of color compared to white communities that occur within the context of racialized historical and cultural conditions. 

• Individual racism: pre-judgement, bias, stereotypes about an individual or group based on race.  The impacts of racism on individuals include members of certain racial groups internalizing privilege and people of color internalizing oppression.
• Institutional racism: Within institutions. Policies, practices, procedures & organizational cultures that work better for white people and work to the detriment of people of color.
• Structural racism: Across society.  The interplay of policies, practices, and programs of multiple institutions which leads to adverse outcomes and conditions for people of color compared to members of other racial groups.  This occurs within the context of racialized historical and cultural conditions.

Sexism: Any act, gesture, visual representation, spoken or written words, practice, or behavior based upon the idea that a person or a group of persons is inferior because of their sex, which occurs in the public or private sphere, whether online or offline and is the manifestation of historically unequal power relations.

Transformative justice – Is a liberatory approach to violence…[which] seeks safety and accountability without relying on alienation, punishment, or state or systemic violence, including incarceration or policing.  

Teaching & Learning stance: Building up the people around you to be constantly learning with you. Being the lead learner is about being connected and making connections to best practices.  Building the capacity of each other through connected and collaborative learning experiences. Being able to answer the question: What does my learning community need from me and how do I empower them? With all partners…students, staff and community.

References & Resources

Ableism.  https://sites.google.com/site/ableism123edu/home.  Accessed 29 April 2023.

The Anti-Oppression Network. Allyship, https://theantioppressionnetwork.com/allyship/. Accessed 27 April 2023. 

Angular, E. (2020). Coaching for equity. conversations that change practice.  Pg. 92-93. New Jersey, US: Jossey-Bass.

Association of Washington Student Leaders (AWSL) (2020). School Equity Audit. 

Association of Washington School Principals (AWSP) Inclusionary Practices Toolkit https://learn.awsp.org/courses/36816. Accessed 28 April, 2023.

Greenia,A. ( 2018) The Role of White Co-Conspirator in Dismantling Systemic Racism.  https://embracingequity.org/blog/2018/11/2/let-us-work-together-the-role-of-white-co-conspirators-in-dismantling-systemic-racism

Global Citizen. Anti-Racism. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/topics/anti-racism/.

Hammond, Z. (2015). Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students. Pg. 155. California, US: Corwin.

Learning for Justice. Race and Equity. https://www.learningforjustice.org/topics/race-ethnicity.

Kershnar, S., Haines, S., Harkins, G., Greig, A., Wiesner, C., Levy, M., Shah, P., Kim, M., & Carr, J. (2007). Toward transformative justice: A liberatory approach to child sexual abuse and other forms of intimate and community violence. https://www.transformativejustice.eu/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/G5_Toward_Transformative_Justice.pdf. Accessed 29 April, 2023.

Pulrang, A.”Words Matter, and It’s Time to Explore the Word “Ableism.” Forbes, 25 October, 2020.https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2020/10/25/words-matter-and-its-time-to-explore-the-meaning-of-ableism/?sh=1248c6d57162.  Accessed 27 April, 2023.

Racial Equity Tools. Glossary.  https://www.racialequitytools.org/glossary

https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/race-and-racial-identity.  Accessed 27 April, 2023.

Radd, Generett, Gooden and Theoharis (2021). Five practices for equity-focused school leadership. Pg. 50-53. Virginia, US: ASCD.

Skelton-Wilson, Lunn, Zhan, Stern, Kendall (2021). Methods and Emerging Strategies to Engage People with Lived Experience. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1bb6cd68f81e1bb74e3bf30e1085a354/lived-experience-brief.pdf. Accessed 27 April, 2023.

Smithsonian, National Museum of African American History & Culture. Talking About Race. https://nmaahc.si.edu/learn/talking-about-race/topics/race-and-racial-identity.

Washington State Human Resources. (2023). DEI Glossary chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://ofm.wa.gov/sites/default/files/public/shr/Diversity/SubCommit/DEI_Glossary_Version_3.1.pdf. Accessed 27 April 2023.

Wenger, E. (1998). Learning in communities of practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

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