How Did We Get Here? A Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Overview
Having worked in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) for several years alongside global clients spanning the APAC region, I’ve observed consistencies in both the challenges faced and knowledge gaps that stand in the way of achieving positive and sustainable change.
One key observation along the way has been that many organisations do want to do better but simply don’t where to start, or have the means to ethically engage with marginalised communities in order to design more inclusive products and services *with*, not for.
This observation led me to the launch of (ide)ate Studio, a human-centred design studio that simplifies DEI, while centring marginalised communities in the development of products, services and spaces.
In doing so, I realised that there is benefit in creating a “101” overview for folks who haven’t worked intimately in the field but want to understand how we got here and why we should care.
If you are looking for a single source of truth regarding DEI, sorry to disappoint but there isn’t one. DEI is messy and ever-changing. Even representative institutions have old or incomplete information. This is the nature of DEI and the learning journey is yours.
Below is a list of key concepts that acted as stepping stones for me, along with links to resources from educators I’ve learned a lot from. They are concepts that were significant in my learning journey and, therefore, might differ from the concepts that others view as significant.
I should also note that my privilege as a white, able-bodied, heterosexual, English-speaking person in Australia means I can not do full justice to descriptions of DEI’s key concepts. That work is better done elsewhere by folks who experience the impact of marginalisation and exclusion. I have listed many of them throughout.
This overview includes (so far):
Marginalised groups in Australia
Bias & Homogeneity
Stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Definitions
Empathy
Power
Privilege
Where more accurate, inclusive or complete information becomes available, this overview will be updated.
Why do we need Diversity, Equity & Inclusion?
“Our organisations, and certainly our world, continue to be unacceptably inequitable, exclusive, and homogenous.” Lily Zheng, DEI Deconstructed
We can’t change outcomes until we understand how they’ve come about, so to understand why we need DEI, we need to first understand how our experiences and identity shape our beliefs and behaviours, and that because of this, everyone’s way of seeing the world (including my own) is constrained by a paradigm that’s full of assumptions, blind spots and contradictions.
Social psychology describes identity as “a social construction that is learned through interactions with others and the world and made up of key aspects like gender, race, sex, social class, ethnicity, age, disability status and faith.”
Each of these aspects has its unique influence on “how you move through the world, what knowledge you produce and value, and the biases through which everything you say, think, and do, is filtered, intentionally or otherwise.” (Kimberlé Crenshaw, American civil rights advocate).
Our social position and the privilege this affords exist based on these complex and intersecting social identities and the relative distance of each to dominant identities and power.
A popular, albeit flawed in ways, tool is the Wheel of Privilege which is linked further down. It demonstrates visually the different dimensions of identity (e.g. sexuality, neurodiversity, age) and how the further you are from the centre, the more likely you are to experience marginalisation and underrepresentation.
DEI work recognises the social injustices this power imbalance creates in our societies and workplaces for historically marginalised groups and seeks to rectify these injustices by dismantling harmful systems of oppression while promoting fairness, inclusivity, and respect.
Marginalised groups in Australia
While different communities, states and countries have their own unique demographic trends, there is consistency around the world regarding which populations experience marginalisation and mistreatment.
The below groups have been included based on groups that the Diversity Council of Australia (DCA) considers marginalised and following a review of underemployed groups within ABS’s labour force data. It also includes demographics that weren’t gathered in ABS data but are underrepresented in Australian business, government and media.
In Australia, DEI mainly focuses on the below populations. You might notice that the definitions I’ve pulled in below come from a mix of both progressive and conventional sources. It’s often the case that the former will have more relevant and timely information so I’d recommend diversifying the sources through which you conduct your own research.
Age (particularly Australians 55+)
Culture & Religion: Can include those born outside of Australia, those who don’t speak English as a first language and those who observe a faith that is different to Christianity (Australia’s dominant religion)
Disability: Refers to people who have a physical, intellectual, psychiatric, sensory, neurological and/or learning disability. Disability can be permanent or temporary, situational, visible or invisible
Gender: A set of social, physical, psychological and emotional traits, often influenced by societal expectations. For an expanded list of terms related to sex, gender identity and sexual orientation, see Learning for Justice’s ‘The Acronym and Beyond.’
Class / Socio-economic Status: Socio-economic status (SES) is the combination of material markers such as income, consumption, wealth, education and employment. It is often referred to in terms of low, medium, and high and often relative to an individual’s opportunity for progression and inclusion. SES is a complex, multidimensional and difficult concept to measure. For more info on how ABS measures this, see Experimental Index of Household Advantage and Disadvantage methodology
It’s important to note that these individual definitions intersect in ways that impact our experiences, for example, Culturally and Racially Marginalised Women (CaRM) have unique challenges in the workplace due to 2 minority characteristics — race and gender.
Intersectionality
The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who describes it as the “lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it looks and intersects.”
Intersectionality acknowledges the complex relationship between social identities and systems of power and oppression. Given the fluid, relational, and social construction of identities, intersectional paradigms recognise that every person has multiple and diverse identities (e.g., race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, dis/ability, beliefs, and worldview) that combine in unique ways to shape our perspectives, and experiences with oppression and privilege (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2001).
Image Source: ecrLife
Bias (& Homophily)
If you have a brain, you have unconscious bias.
Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman describes in his book ‘Thinking Fast & Slow’, the 2 systems of the brain; System 1 and System 2, which “respectively produce fast and slow thinking.”
System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. System 1 is our brains’ way of making sense of the flood of information that is constantly being received and is based on a system of learned stereotypes and assumptions that influence our decisions and judgments.
System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration.
Our behaviour is dominated by our subconscious (system 1). In fact, researchers have estimated that as much as 90–99% of our thought processes occur automatically.
The downside of these very natural and useful processes can be that we divide the world into “them” and “us”, or “in-groups” and “out-groups” (groups you identify with vs. groups you don't identify with and may discriminate against, respectively).
The most powerful drivers in this part of the brain are like and dislike, safe and unsafe, approach and withdrawal and mental shortcuts that have evolved to help save energy.
When a group of people get together who all think the same way and have the same “frames of reference”, homophily occurs i.e. a hidden gravitational force that pulls us towards those that think in the same way. Homophily validates our worldview and makes us feel smarter literally means “love of sameness” or, the tendency for similar individuals to move toward each other and act in a similar manner.
How our brains work affects how we see and deal with others, therefore, it’s important to be mindful of the biases we hold and make efforts to actively unlearn if we don’t wish to perpetuate harm or exclusion through our stereotypes, prejudices and discriminatory behaviour (more info on stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination further below.
Modes of Bias
Interpersonal:
These manifest in day-to-day interactions with peers, colleagues, leaders. The day-to-day conversations, meeting dynamics, or water cooler talk where people with traditionally marginalised identities might have to contend with intentional or unintentional forms of disrespect. e.g. “I didn’t expect you to be so articulate”, “I didn’t expect you to be so assertive”, ‘You don’t look neurodivergent.’
Systemic:
Systemic discrimination can be described as patterns of behaviour, policies or practices that are part of the structures of an organisation that create or perpetuate disadvantage for groups of people who are not from the dominant group/culture. Examples of systemic biases are: a lack of CaRM women in leadership positions, barriers to entry into male-dominated industries for gender-diverse people, marketing campaigns that only ever show people from dominant groups
Common Biases
Affinity Bias:
Affinity bias is the tendency to favour people who share similar interests, backgrounds, and experiences with us. Because of affinity bias, we tend to feel more comfortable around people who are like us and may avoid or even dislike people who are different from us. (e.g. in recruitment, promotion)
Confirmation Bias:
Our tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s existing beliefs or values, for example, a person holds a belief that left-handed people are more creative than right-handed people. Whenever this person encounters a person who is both left-handed and creative, they place greater importance on this “evidence” that supports what they already believe and overlook contradictory information as being an “outlier” or “exception” to the rule.
Halo Bias:
Our tendency to let a single positive trait of a person influence our overall judgement of a person’s character, for example, a teacher’s perception that well-behaved children are more motivated and bright or a recruiter’s perception that a candidate with strong communication skills will be a high performer.
Horn Effect:
Our tendency to ascribe negative attitudes or behaviours to someone based on one aspect of their appearance or character. A common example of this is overweight people, who unfortunately are often stereotyped as being lazy.
Likeability Bias:
Likability bias is the tendency to find women less likable when they don’t meet the expectations of traditional gender roles. When a woman exhibits traditionally male traits (e.g. assertive, decisive) it can be seen as breaking the norm and be penalised. This can often be seen in how we describe women.
Performance Bias:
When we tend to underestimate women’s performance and overestimate men’s, as a result, women have to accomplish more to prove that they’re as competent as men. Women with disabilities and women of colour, particularly Black women, experience this bias even more often than other women i.e. they’re more likely to have their judgement and competence questioned and to hear others express surprise at their language skills or other abilities.
Perception Bias:
When our perception is skewed by the stereotypes and assumptions we have about other groups e.g. She has pink hair, she won’t take her job seriously.
Learn More:
Test yourself for Hidden Bias — Learning for Justice
The School That Tried To End Racism — ABC iView
A Class That Turned Around Kids’ Assumptions of Gender Roles — YouTube
You don’t know what you don’t know: How our unconscious minds undermine the workplace — Life at Google
Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman
Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking — Matthew Syed
“Blind” orchestra auditions reduce sex-biased hiring and increase the number of female musicians
Stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination
Building on the content above regarding biases, stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination is a result of our brain’s tendency to shortcut and opt for “efficiency.” At both an individual and systemic level, they are either implicit (unconscious) or explicit (conscious).
Learning for Justice defines stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination below, in order of when we generally acquire each (i.e. belief > opinion > behaviour):
A stereotype is an exaggerated belief, image or distorted truth about a person or group — a generalisation that allows for little or no individual differences or social variation. Stereotypes are based on images in mass media, or reputations passed on by parents, peers and other members of society. Stereotypes can be positive or negative.
Prejudice is an opinion, prejudgment or attitude about a group or its individual members. A prejudice can be positive, but in our usage refers to a negative attitude. Prejudices are often accompanied by ignorance, fear or hatred. Prejudices are formed by a complex psychological process that begins with attachment to a close circle of acquaintances or an “in-group” such as a family. Prejudice is often aimed at “out-groups.”
Discrimination is behaviour that treats people unequally because of their group memberships. Discriminatory behaviour, ranging from sleights to hate crimes, often begins with negative stereotypes and prejudices.
Learn More:
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is often used interchangeably with D&I, DEIB, IDEA, IDE, the list goes on (“J” stands for Justice, “B” is for Belonging, “A” represents Action and/or Accessibility.”
In Lily Zheng’s ‘DEI Deconstructed’, they observe (and I agree) that much of the language surrounding DEI is vague, centred on intentions and lacking in accountability. The definitions below are their new, expanded definitions that focus on outcomes and accountability. I now choose to use these in place of previous, more opaque versions.
Diversity is the achievement of a workforce composition that all stakeholders, especially underserved and marginalised populations, trust to be representative and accountable. Diversity is achieved through actions that explicitly counter present-day and historical inequities and meet the unique needs of all populations.
Equity is the measured experience of individual, interpersonal, and organisational success and wellbeing across all stakeholder populations and the absence of discrimination, mistreatment or abuse for all. Equity is achieved by eliminating structural barriers resulting from historical and present-day inequities and meeting individuals’, groups’, and organisations’ unique needs.
Inclusion is the achievement of an environment that all stakeholders, especially underserved and marginalised populations, trust to be respectful and accountable. Inclusion is achieved through actions that explicitly counter present-day and historical inequities and meet the unique needs of all populations.
Together, DEI refers to an organisation’s demographic composition, structural success and the built environment. “Achieving” DEI requires a strategy that dismantles historical inequities and meets people's unique needs, building leveraging and maintaining stakeholder trust.
While I use the acronym DEI, there is certainly a case to be made about the omission of verb’s e.g. Action, Justice. Organisations and individuals should decide based on what feels right to them and the outcome they’re looking to achieve.
Learn More:
Power
Power exists based on complex and intersecting social identities, such as race, gender, ability, class, faith/religion, age and sexuality and the relative distance of these identities to dominant identities and power.
Power is often broken down conceptually into “power to” and “power over’.
Power to
Power to might be exemplified by the power white people have to tell stories that are not their own, and the power to frame other people as deceptive when they try to tell their own narrative.
Power over
Power over might be exemplified by the power managers have over employees and the accommodations they do or don’t allow for folks with disabilities.
In our society, only particular groups of people have the power and opportunity to determine what stories get told.
It is those with power — those who hold leadership positions within organisations, government and institutions who decide who gets to tell their story, on whose terms, and which will be amplified or silenced.
For example, we are far more likely to hear the first-person life story of a straight white man, than of a Black lesbian. We are more likely to hear an account of sex work from someone who hasn’t worked in that industry rather than someone who has, and those who believe trans women are a threat to cisgender women are more able to share their belief than those who recognise its falsehood.
At the individual and structural levels, some groups have more power than others, as shown by their overrepresentation in well-paid, high-status jobs and institutions of power; the ways in which bodies like theirs are presented as the norm and catered to by public spaces; and experience the degree of immunity that allows them to engage in transgressions that would otherwise be met with severe consequences if committed by individuals from marginalised cohorts.
Maya Goodwill in ‘A Social Designer’s Field Guide to Power Literacy’ (in collaboration with Kennisland) defines the variations forms of power:
Access Power is the ability to influence which stakeholders are included and which are excluded from the design process altogether.
Goal Power is the ability to initiate the design project to begin with, as well as the ability to influence decisions related to framing the problem, goals and the structure of the design process
Role Power is the ability to influence the role that different stakeholders who have already been given access to the design process will take on. It also includes the ability to influence the role that each stakeholder will play in making decisions, especially what role — if any — various stakeholders are given in synthesising and prioritising during the converging phases
Rule Power is the ability to influence the way that those in the design process will work together. It includes the ability to influence what is considered normal, what is allowed and what isn’t, how actors will communicate with each other, including language used, and beliefs about what types of knowledge are valid.
Learn More:
‘A Social Designer’s Field Guide to Power Literacy’ — Maya Goodwill
‘This Book Will Make You Kinder: An Empathy Handbook’ — Henry James Garrett
EMD Power Resource — Equity Meets Design
Privilege
Perhaps one of the most contentious terms.
The term ‘privilege’ is now wielded as an insult and its meaning diluted.
Privilege is the type of power whereby you benefit due to the social group you belong to, at the expense of another social group. It is an unearned advantage given to you because of your identity. When you have privilege, it is often invisible to you.
Identities include:
Citizenship: citizen, documented, undocumented
Skin colour: white, different shades, dark
Formal education: post-secondary, high school, elementary
Ability: able-bodied, some disability, significant disability
Sexuality: heterosexual; gay men; lesbian, bi, pan, asexual
Neurodiversity: neurotypical, neuroatypical, significant neurodivergence
Mental health: robust, mostly stable, vulnerable
Body size: slim, average, large
Housing: owns property, sheltered/renting, homeless
Wealth: rich, middle class, poor
Language: English, Learned English, non-English monolingual
Gender: cisgender man; cisgender woman; trans, intersex, non-binary
Sylvia Duckworth’s “wheel of power/privilege” below provides a non-exhaustive visual representation of how power, privilege, and social identities intersect. The graphic below uses the imagery of a wheel, sectioned off by the following social identities and respective categories, with the idea being the closer you are to the centre, the more privilege and power you hold.
Image Source: Research Gate
Ways we can be privileged without realising it (with inclusions from @impact):
You see yourself represented in different ways in media (cisgender, white, able-bodied privilege)
You are treated less violently by authorities (white privilege)
You know that if you aren’t offered a job or approved for a home, it’s not because of your disability, race or young age
You don’t have to worry about others finding out about your e.g. sexual orientation, invisible disability, parental status
You have control over your time (class privilege)
You are not asked to speak for an entire population with which you share a marginalising characteristic (various URG’s)
You do not have to protest for your basic human rights (cisgender, white, able-bodied privilege)
You can walk into a clothing store and see multiple options for yourself (able-bodied and thin privilege)
In a separate post, I’ll attempt to illustrate why I believe privileged folks, like myself, owe so much more to those in less privileged positions.
See more:
Wheel of Privilege — this doesn’t come without its flaws but is a helpful first step for many
Equity Meets Design (EMD) Power Resource prefers to use the 10(+1) ideas, and not just something like an identity wheel when talking about privilege and power because “it isn’t our identities that give us power, it’s the ideas that give power to some over others”.
Empathy
I don’t think we can talk about DEI without mentioning empathy. It’s our ability to empathise that determines whether or not someone has the ability to change their mind in light of new, more accurate information about a person or group.
Many things stand in the way of our ability to empathise with others who are not in our “in-group”. I’ve chosen 2 to start with 1) ignorance and 2) the relationship that we have with ourselves.
Ignorance
Ignorance is empathy’s kryptonite. But even for the well-intended, there are actions we take every day that uphold our ignorance and impede our ability to empathise.
In ‘This Book Will Make You Kinder: An Empathy Handbook’, Henry James Garrett calls these ‘empathy limiting mistakes’ and describes them as ‘any mental state (belief or opinion) that would change in light of new, more accurate information, in such a way that you would find yourself with a greater empathetic motivation to pursue a particular course of action.”
But empathy-limiting mistakes don’t fall evenly. He points out that — just like everything else — the distribution of the empathy deficit in our society is distributed just as unevenly, and that the demand for greater empathy must be directed primarily to those born to privilege.
He lists several empathy-limiting mistakes such as:
When we believe something that isn’t true
When we fail to undo social injustices from which we benefit
When we can’t envision the indirect impacts
I highly recommend purchasing the book for a more thorough exploration.
Empathy-limiting mistakes happen because we empathise more readily with those in our in-group as we know more about them. There’s always a temptation to believe what is comfortable and easy to believe, but we must be able to see that it is empathy that allows us to act differently towards someone with each humanising insight into their humanity, and extend this capability so it touches those we don’t get to engage with directly.
A quote that moved me is by gender non-conforming writer, performance artist, and media personality, Alok Vaid-Menon on The Man Enough podcast:
“To date, the focus has been on comprehension, not compassion. People will say “I don’t understand, why do you need to understand me in order to say that I shouldn’t be experiencing violence or attack? That equation, that lack of empathy, we need to interrogate.”
2. The relationship we have with oneself
If you haven’t heard the phrase “hurt people hurt people”, it’s an expression that highlights the idea that individuals who have experienced emotional pain or suffering in their lives are more likely to inflict pain or hurt on others. It is based on the notion that people’s actions and behaviours are often influenced by their own emotional wounds and unresolved issues.
Those who experience the greatest suffering are often the ones who cause harm to others. Those burdened by shame are quick to shame others. People who are critical of themselves tend to pass judgement on others. Those who feel rejected often reject others.
It’s important to note that this concept does not excuse or justify hurtful behaviour. However, it helps to understand that hurtful actions often stem from underlying pain or trauma. By recognising this cycle, we can develop empathy and compassion for those we don’t understand and may be causing pain to.
See more:
This Book Will Make You Kinder: An Empathy Handbook by Henry James Garrett
Conclusion & Final Thoughts
DEI is not a destination but an ongoing process. It requires continuous learning, self-reflection, and a commitment to taking action.
I encourage you to explore other educators, only some of which have been included here. If there are folks who’ve influenced and educated you in this field, I’d love to hear about them in the ‘DEI-Pedia Feedback & Contributions’ form below:
By recognising the complexities and embracing the journey, we can collectively work towards a more inclusive and equitable world for all.