Learning in a digital age/LiDA102/Societal issues/Equity and inclusion

Inclusion is about a sense of belonging irrespective of national origin, age, race, ethnicity, belief, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or socioeconomic status. Equity is a proactive commitment to equal opportunity and practices that ensure inclusion without intentional (or unintentional) discrimination.

In this section, we investigate examples of gender discrimination in a digital world, recognising that equity and inclusion are not restricted to gender alone.

Stimulus resources

• Equality versus equity illustration, published by madewithangus.com
• What is diversity, equity and inclusion, published by OpenCon.

“	Ideologically. There’s a problem with the Internet. Largely designed by men from the developed world, it is built for men of the developed world. Men of science. Men of industry. Military men. Venture capitalists. Despite all the hype and hope about revolution and access and opportunity that these new technologies will provide us, they do not negate hierarchy, history, privilege, power. They reflect those. They channel it. They concentrate it, in new ways and in old.	”
—Audrey Watters, Hack Education

Reading

Audrey Watters is a scholar and journalist who specialises in educational technology news and analysis. Her work focuses on the interrelationships among politics, pedagogy, business, culture and educational technology. Audrey's blog Hack Education is well regarded among international peers.

Audrey explains men explaining technology to her

The reading for this section is based on the transcript of a talk Audrey presented at the University of Mary Washington in 2014:

• Watters, A. (2014, November 18). Men Explain Technology to Me: On Gender, Ed-Tech, and the Refusal to Be Silent. Hack Education.

“	There is something else that really bothers me about the use of the the word 'troll' to describe garden variety misogyny. It suggest that this is an Internet problem, rather than a society problem.	”
—Steph Guthrie, TeDx Toronto, 2013.

Media

Steph Guthrie is a gender justice consultant. She is a feminist advocate, organiser and analyst focusing on the intersections of gender, culture and technology to promote more gender-inclusive civic discourse.

The problem with "Don't Feed the Trolls"