Creating an inclusive curriculum requires a shared understanding of the concepts of equality, diversity, and inclusion. Definitions of these terms are
explored in the subsequent paragraphs. Equality is about ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents, by taking steps to ensure that no one is disadvantaged because of their identity in relation to any protected characteristic. Protected characteristics in Irish Equality Laws are:
Equality does not mean always treating people equally, as treating people equally can often result in disadvantage. For example, allocating student placements randomly rather than considering whether students can access public transport or whether they have caring commitments before allocating placements is likely to cause considerable disadvantage to some of your students with disabilities or caring responsibilities.
In addition, to the protected characteristics listed, technological universities
may have specific initiatives in place for groups including care leavers, refugees and lower socioeconomic groups.
Diversity is about recognising, respecting, and celebrating each other’s differences. Our society is increasingly diverse, and this diversity brings richness of experience, different and innovative mindsets, and exciting possibilities for creativity and innovation. In the development and delivery of curriculum, it is important to consider and represent the diversity within our society, to ensure we are facilitating the creativity and opportunity that diversity can bring, and not stifling it by excluding or oppressing these perspectives.
A diverse curriculum ensures that students can:
To do this, a diverse curriculum ensures that images, case studies, readings, and media are not dominated by a single gender or ethnicity or other characteristic. Furthermore, it ensures that representation is not one sided, e.g., with White European case studies always being portrayed as positive and others being consistently negative. It ensures that different perspectives of events or schools of thought are considered, included, and discussed, encouraging students to critique dominant ways of thinking.
Finally, it recognises historical injustices or inequalities, and ensures students feel empowered to address future injustices in their professional lives.
Inclusion is about creating an environment where all students, regardless of their characteristics, circumstances, or backgrounds, feel welcome, valued and able to positively contribute and learn. It involves taking steps to identify and address the barriers that students might face in accessing their curriculum because of their protected characteristics, both in terms of systemic barriers (such as digital accessibility), circumstantial barriers (such as schedules incompatible with caring responsibilities) or human barriers (such as unconscious biases displayed by staff or other students).
These definitions of equality, diversity, and inclusion are adopted and used
throughout the EDIT principles and the accompanying EDIT toolkit.