Equity-Minded Pedagogy vs. Emancipatory Pedagogy

There are many current descriptors that are floating around SOTL, DBER, and STEM educational research spaces, each trying to accurately capture some difference in pedagogies: culturally related/responsive/sustaining pedagogy, open pedagogy, critical pedagogy, decolonized/decolonizing pedagogies, equity-minded pedagogies, equity-centered pedagogies…and that’s just mentioning a few. I tend to group the first three pedagogies – culturally related/responsive/sustaining, open, and critical with ungrading to form emancipatory pedagogies. And – as far as I can tell – the decolonized/decolonizing and equity-centered pedagogies do the same thing at least in terms of assessment criteria, making those terms semi-synonymous with emancipatory pedagogies. So, in this blog, I’m going to try to form a distinction between equity-minded pedagogies and emancipatory pedagogies.

Emancipatory Pedagogies

I have previously defined emancipatory pedagogies here in a more formal way and here in a slightly less formal way. As a reminder, the set of emancipatory pedagogical practices I defined in “The ungrading learning theory we have is not the ungrading learning theory we need” (Sorensen-Unruh, 2024) [henceforth referred to as the CBE:LSE paper] that embody the common themes of emancipatory pedagogies include: engaging in critical reflection as a fundamental and important aspect of learning (Bali et al., 2020; Freire, 1970; Ladson-Billings, 1995; Mejia et al., 2018; Nouri & Sajjadi, 2014); redistributing the power in the classroom so that learners can better manage their own learning (Aronson & Laughter, 2016; Clack, 2019; Rodriguez, 2013); increasing agency for students (Aronson & Laughter, 2016; Bali et al., 2020; Giroux, 1988; Olitsky, 2007; Phuong et al., 2017); involving students in participatory design (Klenowski et al., 2006; Könings et al., 2011, 2014); embracing dialogic engagement in the classroom, including the questioning of authority and authoritative institutions (Aronson & Laughter, 2016; Bali et al., 2020; Blum, 2020; Freire, 1970; Hannafin et al., 2014; Kent & Taylor, 2021; Paris, 2012); remaining transparent throughout the course and the assessment process (Bali et al., 2020; Hannafin et al., 2014) and asset framing (Aronson & Laughter, 2016; Paris, 2012).

Equity-Minded Pedagogies

Out of these two terms, equity-minded pedagogy is the harder one to define neatly. In general, my definition of equity-minded pedagogies refers to a broad range of pedagogical practices meant to promote DEIJ within education using intersectional lenses, but not to the extent that the professor redistributes the power of learning to the students. This definition seems to be echoed by several literature sources, including those authored by Montenegro & Jankowski (2020), Elkhoury, Ali, & Sutherland-Harris (2023), and Artze-Vega, Darby, Dewsbury, & Imad (2023).

The equity-minded teaching assessment requirements found in chapter 3 (equity-minded assessments) of “The Norton guide to equity-minded teaching” (Artze-Vega, Darby, Dewsbury, & Imad, 2023) include purpose, authenticity, and transparency. Purpose seems to include how the assessment fits into the classroom curriculum, what the assessment format is (formative vs. summative), and how the assessment promotes belonging. Authenticity is a combination of asset framing and authentic assessments (Wiggins, 1998), which should be challenging, performance- or product-oriented, metacognitive, knowledge-generating (even if that’s transfer), and collaborative (Ashford-Rowe, 2014).

Equity-minded assessment is further delineated by Elkhoury, Ali, & Sutherland-Harris (2023) using emergent themes in their interview analysis during an OER course they developed called “Equity in Assessment”. These themes included multi-layered flexibility “in instructor policies and procedures, in assessment design and delivery, or in connecting and communicating with students” (Elkhoury, Ali, & Sutherland-Harris, 2023, p. 9), academic rigor, or “academic challenge that supports learning and growth in students that is therefore supported and made more effective by an equity-informed approach that takes student diversity seriously” (Campbell et al., 2018, p. 12 as read in Elkhoury, Ali, & Sutherland-Harris, 2023, p. 4) , and wellness, which balances instructor time and workload vs. student time and workload vs. structural and cultural barriers, as defined by Collins & Bilge (2020) and explained in detail previously (Knottenbelt & Sorensen-Unruh, 2023).

In “A New Decade for Assessment: Embedding Equity into Assessment Praxis” (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2020), equity-mindedness “refers to ways we ensure assessment processes and practices are appropriate for all students and that we ultimately do no harm in the process” (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2020, p. 13) and includes: meaningful student involvement and transparency (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2020, p. 10), meaningful data disaggregation, exploration and action (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2020, p. 11), and context-specific approaches and responses, including culturally responsive and sustaining elements and asset-framing (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2020, p. 12). We need to do the following as practitioners when we are trying to enact equity-minded assessment:

1. check biases and ask reflective questions throughout the assessment process to address assumptions and positions of privilege; 
2. use multiple sources of evidence appropriate for the students being assessed and assessment effort; 
3. include student perspectives and take action based on perspectives; 
4. increase transparency in assessment results and actions; 
5. ensure collected data can be meaningfully disaggregated and interrogated; and 
6. make evidence-based changes that address issues of equity that are context-specific. (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2020, p. 13)

Assessment that is equity-minded “requires a certain comfort with being uncomfortable; with having tough conversations, engaging in reflective practices, and implementing a critical mindset throughout” (Montenegro & Jankowski, 2020, p. 17).

How Equity-Minded, Equity-Centered, and Emancipatory pedagogies overlap

Sometimes, equity-minded, equity-centered, and emancipatory pedagogies seem synonymous. Malcolm-Piqueux & Bensimon (2017) make the implicit explicit in the emancipatory definition above:

Equity-mindedness is a schema that provides an alternative framework for understanding the causes of equity gaps in outcomes and the action needed to close them. Equity-mindedness encompasses being (1) race conscious (in an affirmative sense), (2) institutionally focused (feel a personal and institutional responsibility to address systemic inequities as problems of practice), (3) evidence based (rely on evidence to guide their practice), (4) systemically aware (awareness of and responsiveness to systemic inequities), and (5) action oriented (p. 6-8).

Heiser, Schnelle, & Tullier (2023) differentiate equity-centered assessment from equity-minded assessment: Equity-centered assessment leverages the assessment process to foster equity, address issues of oppression and privilege, improve student learning, and reshape systems and structures influencing the environments in which students learn (p. 7). They specifically address how their definition of equity-centered assessment differs from Montenegro & Jankowski’s (2020) definition of equity-minded assessment by saying:

Equity-centered assessment diverges from equity-minded assessment by moving beyond the thoughtful inclusion of, or attention to, diverse learning experiences and instead locates equity issues, how they are grounded in systems and structures, and how they are upheld or dismantled at the heart of the assessment process. This approach also calls on assessment practitioners to examine their own social locations and how their positionality influences the process and advances equity or propagates harm. (Heiser, Schnelle, & Tullier, 2023, p. 8)

For Heiser, Schnelle, & Tullier (2023), there are six core characteristics for equity-centered assessment, which include “considering the larger motivations and goals for assessment practice, knowledge construction and epistemology, reification of power structures, methodological pluralism, collaboration and voice, and positionality and reflexivity” (p. 8). Larger motivations and goals should be aligned with the ideals of justice over fairness, with particular attention paid to social justice and equity in assessment. Knowledge construction and epistemology seek to break the ideal of Western colonial knowledge and to not only ask how is knowledge generated, but also what types of information are purposefully excluded from our definitions of what knowledge is. Reification of dominant power structures and methodological pluralism ask us to question: what our measurements tools are and why we use them (HELLO GRADING), whether our assessments are just measurements for all students, which assessments allow participant design, and which assessments and measurement tools are most culturally and critically inclusive, allow a redistribution of power among the classroom with more agency given to students about their learning processes. Centering student voice is a combination of student agency and something akin to accessing students’ funds of knowledge (which I propose in the CBE:LSE paper (Sorensen-Unruh, 2024) as one of two fundamental learning theories that should undergird ungrading). Centering student voice also includes “encouraging cross-institutional collaboration and involvement through assessment design, meaning-making, and implications discussions” (Heiser, Schnelle, & Tullier, 2023, p. 12). While Heiser, Schnelle, & Tullier (2023) focus positionality and reflexivity on the practitioner experience, embracing critical reflection as a hallmark of equity-centered assessment approaches, I prefer focusing positionality, reflexivity, and critical reflection on both the practitioner and student experience (Knottenbelt & Sorensen-Unruh, 2024).

So what are we to make of all of this?

I think it’s fairly clear that Heiser, Schnelle, & Tullier’s (2023) equity-centered assessment mirrors my definition of emancipatory pedagogies quite nicely, especially when the learning theories proposed to undergird emancipatory pedagogies – Funds of Knowledge (Kiyama & Aguilar, 2018; Rios-Aguilar & Neri, 2021; Verdin, Smith, & Lucerna, 2021) and Community Cultural Wealth (Acevedo & Solorzano, 2021; Yosso, 2005) – are factored into the emancipatory pedagogies definition as well. I think Malcolm-Piqueux and Bensimon’s (2017) definition of equity-minded assessment seems to be an outlier among the definitions provided by Montenegro & Jankowski (2020), Elkhoury, Ali, & Sutherland-Harris (2023), and Artze-Vega, Darby, Dewsbury, & Imad (2023). Malcolm-Piqueux and Bensimon’s (2017) definition of equity-minded assessment better fits the principles outlined by the emancipatory pedagogy and equity-centered assessment definitions overall.

The distinction of equity-centered vs. equity-minded assessments by Heiser, Schnelle, & Tullier’s (2023) is important here, and it seems to mirror my distinction between emancipatory and inclusive pedagogies here, which I will reiterate below:

Inclusive/Authentic/Equity-Minded pedagogies (ie pedagogies of kindness, trauma-informed pedagogies, equity-minded assessment, etc.) involve working within the current educational system to try to be as equitable and humanistic (maybe human-centric is a better term here) as possible. These pedagogies may or may not understand the white supremacist undergirdings of the current education system but they absolutely understand that certain groups are oppressed within this system and that education must work for all involved. However, this is my distinction – in many discussions, the phrase “inclusive pedagogies” has become so broad as to include almost everything under any pedagogical level.

Equity-Centered/Emancipatory pedagogies involve breaking the constraints of the educational system we already know is rigged to benefit certain groups (based on white supremacy or colonization or, or, or…) in ways that best benefit learners from those groups that are most oppressed. The dismantling of systemic and systematic injustice to elevate oppressed groups is the centerpiece of these pedagogies. This dismantling includes questioning who gets to learn, how they are allowed to learn, what counts as learning, how they are assessed, and who benefits from their knowledge sharing and generation.

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