Seeing outside the E&D ‘box’

Most of us do not fit neatly into just one or even two or three E&D ‘boxes’. We recognise that aspects of our identity, cultural heritage and social circumstances are not mutually exclusive entities but instead interact. Do your staff appreciate that this intersectionality approach to equality and diversity has significance for colleges wanting to close equality gaps? Would new guidance help?

Intersectionality is the understanding that aspects of a person’s identity such as age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and social circumstance do not operate as single, mutually exclusive entities but rather these aspects interact and contribute to a person’s specific experiences and perspectives

Intersectional perspectives recognise that understanding the experiences of, for example, disabled students from ethnic minority backgrounds, requires an understanding how the combination of ethnicity and disability can create specific barriers, obstacles and circumstances. This is different from understanding ethnicity and disability separately.

The Equality Challenge Unit (ECU, now part of Advance HE) have published a briefing which covers institution-wide work to raise awareness of intersectionality.

You can download the briefing here