Equity
Equity is the quality of being fair and impartial, fairness, fair-mindedness, justness, justice, equitableness, fair play, impartiality, evenhandedness, egalitarianism, honesty, integrity, rightness, rightfulness, rectitude, uprightness, righteousness, properness, decency, goodness, honourableness, scrupulousness, conscientiousness, reasonableness, sensibleness, disinterest, disinterestedness, neutrality, objectivity, balance, open-mindedness
Equity, In other words, means value, worth, valuation, ownership, rights, proprietorship, and right of possession of the value of a mortgaged property after deduction of charges against it.
Recent decades have seen rising inequality and inequities, which are in turn partly responsible for the world lagging. While this rise may be driven largely by worldwide processes such as globalization and economic integration, more than by government or donor policies, rising inequity is a problem that can and should be tackled by the development community, and should be more firmly on the agenda. This paper draws together the current understanding of why it is important, and how to tackle it.
There is a growing recognition of the importance of equity to development, and many development agencies recognise equity as a central goal for their programming. However, while equity is used intuitively in development debates and programming, it seems that its meaning is not clearly understood. This is reflected in often shallow analysis about what equity is and what should be done to achieve it. Its importance is recognised, but the policy priorities for achieving it are not consistently or coherently explored.
Equity usually appears in courts of law as a term related to justice or proportional fairness, or in financial offices to property or one’s share of a company. The derivative root of the noun, which gained stability in the English language during the 1300s, is Latin aequus, meaning “even,” “fair,” or “equal”; however, to be fair, it was introduced to English by the French, whose adaptation of the Latin was equité. The French word has clear legal connotations; it means “justice” or “rightness,” and those meanings, plus a splash of “fairness,” carried over to the English word equity. Noah Webster, himself a lawyer, notes the legal term equity of redemption in his 1828 dictionary defining it as “the advantage, allowed to a mortgager, of a reasonable time to redeem lands mortgaged when the estate is of greater value than the sum for which it was mortgaged.” This use led to the modern financial meanings of equity: “the value of a piece of property after any debts that remain to be paid is subtracted” and “a share in a company or of a company’s stock.”Putting equity at the heart of development programming could potentially have further benefits. As well as adding practical value, the symbolic, normative and political dimensions of the concept promote the recognition of key challenges, resonate with stakeholders North and South, foster empowerment and engagement and promote deeper, more sustainable change.
Equity is the quality of being fair and impartial. Social equity is impartiality, fairness and justice for all people in social policy. Social equity takes into account systemic inequalities to ensure everyone in a community has access to the same opportunities and outcomes. Equity of all kinds acknowledges that inequalities exist and works to eliminate them.
Putting equity at the heart of development programming could potentially have further benefits. As well as adding practical value, the symbolic, normative and political dimensions of the concept promote the recognition of key challenges, resonate with stakeholders North and South, foster empowerment and engagement and promote deeper, more sustainable change.
Equity comes from the idea of moral equality, that people should be treated as equals. Thinking about equity can help us decide how to distribute goods and services across society, holding the state responsible for its influence over how goods and services are distributed in a society, and using this influence to ensure fair treatment for all citizens. Applying these ideas in a specific country context involves hard choices, and embedding discussions of distributive justice into domestic political and policy debates is central to national development, but three areas of considerable consensus can be identified.
Equal life chances: There should be no differences in outcomes based on factors for which people cannot be held responsible. Equal concern for people’s needs: Some goods and services are necessities, and should be distributed solely to the level of need. Meritocracy: Positions in society and rewards should reflect differences in effort and ability, based on fair competition.
Social equity is defined as “the fair, just and equitable management of all institutions serving the public directly or by contract; and the fair and equitable distribution of public services, and implementation of public policy; and the commitment to promote fairness, justice and equity in the formation of public policy.”
Social policy, and social equity within it, can include a variety of public contexts. This includes but is not limited to education, policing, welfare, housing and transportation. Planning for social equity means recognizing planning practices that have had a disparate impact on certain communities and actively working with affected residents to create better communities for all so that every community member can thrive.
Social equity “must be informed by local planning history, the equity landscape and the input of diverse stakeholders” to be impactful and successful. The organization goes further to explain: “Planning for social equity means recognizing planning practices that have had a disparate impact on certain communities and actively working with affected residents to create better communities for all,” and that three major issues related to social equity include “gentrification, environmental justice and community engagement and empowerment.”
Equity is defined as, “something equitable,” whereas equitable is defined as, “dealing fairly and equally with all concerned.”
In education and social structures, equity refers to the fact that different people have varying needs for support and assistance. Therefore, systems exist to be able to support individuals based on their specific needs.
The goal of equity is to help achieve fairness in treatment and outcomes. It’s a way in which equality is achieved.
Equity is the idea of “leveling the playing field” so that fairness happens along the path to success. Equality treats everyone the same without paying attention to the natural differences between people of different races, sexes, social classes, and more. If we take this into account when it comes to education, it becomes easier to understand.
It’s understandable why equity is hard to achieve. Our systems are designed to favour the majority, but this means that some individuals slip through the cracks.
So how can we change systems to be equitable? It would be hard to service every individual’s needs, especially in higher education, where classrooms are often filled with hundreds of students from different backgrounds.
One way to approach the situation is to practice “differentiated instruction.” This requires that teachers and leaders pay close attention to those who don’t fit the average mould so that they can work towards serving their needs.
Unfortunately, there is considerable inequity in developing countries. People’s access to and interaction with key institutions are shaped by power balances in the political, economic and social spheres, often leading to adverse incorporation and social exclusion. Also, patterns of inequality reinforce each other through intergenerational transmission and various formal and informal institutions, resulting in inequality between groups and geographical regions and chronic poverty passed between generations. The available evidence on the scale of the challenge confirms a worrying picture of life chances dependent on inherited circumstances and inequitable access to services, as well as rising income inequality which may further entrench disadvantage. As well as being a bad thing in itself, this inequity hurts growth, poverty reduction, social cohesion and voice.
Think about it this way everyone learns differently. Some students do better with auditory learning, while others prefer visual learning and have to see things to understand them. If a teacher only teaches with one style, it will favour those students who prefer this method. While it’s equal because everyone gets the same treatment, it’s not equitable because some students may have performed better given a different teaching style.
The term equity refers to fairness and justice. The term equality refers to equal opportunity, equal access, equal treatment, equal sharing and division of resources, keeping everyone at the same level regardless of the tools they already do or don’t have access to. Social equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. Social equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. For a more in-depth discussion on the very important differences between equity and equality.
