130 – Equality and Equity

[00:00:00] Lily: Hello, and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. I’m Lily Clements, a Data Scientist, and I’m here with David Stern, a founding director of Items. Hi, David.

[00:00:15] David: Hi, Lily. Nice to chat. What’s our topic today?

[00:00:19] Lily: Our topic today is I guess related to options by context. I wanted to pick your brains a bit at this one.

[00:00:24] David: Yeah, one of our principles, really important, central to a lot of what we do. So yeah, go ahead.

[00:00:30] Lily: Yeah and one that I do agree with quite wholly. I guess I just wanted to know something else on it. I was having a conversation with a friend who’s a teacher and they were saying that some students are getting kind of special rewards, like they might be acting up usually, and then they get rewarded when they don’t act up. But then those students that never act up don’t get those rewards. And I guess it led us into a conversation that I’d really like to know your opinion on of are we now just giving special treatment? To what extent is options by context giving people special treatment, and then disadvantaging others?

[00:01:07] David: Okay, so I want to disentangle some of this. Options by context is really a framing, let me explain where this has come from. This has come from breeding trials and what is known as genotype by environment interactions, the fact that different seeds, different varieties of a particular plant, let’s say, behave differently in different environments. And so options by context says that you should be thinking about not just whether something works or what the option is, but thinking about it in context. And so you should be thinking about how it works in particular contexts.

So that is what options by context is. What you’re describing, which is, I think, very important, is a rather different concept to me.

[00:02:09] Lily: Okay.

[00:02:10] David: It’s the fact that in education in the UK and in many other places, there are various concessions which are being made and being given based on particular student needs. Now, one could argue that this is a case of options by context. The needs of the individual, the context of the individual, determine the option which is given to them.

[00:02:37] Lily: Yeah.

[00:02:39] David: However, it isn’t options by context once you’ve got a policy. The discussion of whether the policy is good or not is different from the discussion about whether you should be taking context into account when determining this. The question isn’t whether everybody at school should be treated the same. That’s been shown that this is not a good way.

Now, whether a given policy is good as a way of dealing with particular special needs or whatever it is, that’s another discussion. And so these should not be confused. So if you believe that the particular implementation which has been chosen of how to implement behaviour issues within schools is good or bad, has nothing to do with a discussion about whether we should consider options by context, if that makes sense.

[00:03:38] Lily: So where in IDEMS, then, is there this kind of options by context? Because I guess if I’m getting it mixed up then that’s good to know. But, I guess my example, I don’t mean is necessarily just in education, it’s everywhere. And I then thought, okay, I know in IDEMS that there’s no blanket rule on how you treat all of the employees, say it’s more up to you.

[00:04:05] David: Well, let’s go back to the education example.

[00:04:08] Lily: Okay. Okay.

[00:04:09] David: Because this is a really good example about whether this is good or whether this isn’t good. And the key point being that if you treat different people differently based on their needs or their situation, this can lead to creating other problems. And so, what is the key here is that giving extra attention to people who have behaviour problems may be detracting from the attention that you could be given to people who don’t have behaviour problems.

[00:04:45] Lily: Yeah.

[00:04:46] David: And therefore, is this a sensible use of resource?

The key question is exactly that. It is about what is the resource available? What resource is needed for different things? In a highly constrained environment, if you were in Kenya, this would be inconceivable, because you don’t have the resources to deal with people who behave normally, so anyone who’s outside of the norm, you accept that they’re just going to have to pay the price.

[00:05:17] Lily: Okay.

[00:05:18] David: Now, the UK has got to a position where actually there’s enough resource to deal with everyone who is able to conform and therefore extra resource was put in or brought in in ways which are really quite impressive, to deal with other needs to be more inclusive.

So I would argue there’s the Kenyan context, which I know very well, and there’s the UK context. And I would argue that options by context says that the choices we should make will be different in Kenya than in the UK.

[00:06:01] Lily: Okay.

[00:06:02] David: So that’s what I would argue options by context says explicitly there. Even if the teacher who’s involved in this in a UK environment figures out what the best way to do this is for them, that will be in their context. And I’m not saying the current policy is the best or it’s not and so on. Because that’s a whole big debate and it’s a hard question.

What I am saying is that options by context on that is about the fact that the nature of the problem they’re describing is highly dependent on the context, and so if we’re looking for the solution, are we looking for what’s the best way to do this or are we looking for, given the constraints of our context, what’s the best way to do this?

And so one of the things which is so important is that, by and large, when you look at the educational research on this, that doesn’t exist. It doesn’t say what are the compromises you’re making by choosing to assign resource here versus here. I would love it if the research changed to be able to investigate much more, not just what works, what’s good, but a bit more of the subtlety around that, when is this working? How much resource does it need? Proportionally, what are the alternatives were given different layers of resource, either human or financial or whatever it may be that could be put to the problem?

And so I would love it if we actually had much more of that complexity entering in to the research that happens on this. And that would be how I would argue options by context can and should be helping, as a concept, the particular education problem you’re pointing to. I think it’s absolutely clear that one size fits all, we know that there are problems with that. But there are also problems with anything else you would choose.

And one size fits all then maybe the people that it helps are the people that as a teacher you want to be helping more. If you’re finding as a teacher that the balance is shifting too far the other way, then maybe that’s because in the context, and I know the context of UK schools is, they are stretched on resources now. They’ve had increasing demands with decreasing resources. And so it could be now that actually the balance is not right. When I say it could be, I know there are issues.

I’m not going to delve into what should be, because that’s a whole difficult question. But what I am going to say is that I don’t believe that the current research is engaging enough with that complexity of how should these policies change depending on your resourcing level? What’s possible in a good private school with heavy resources coming from parents, you know, versus a school which has much more limited resources? There may need to be that discussion very openly about the fact that the resourcing level will affect what is possible and what is not just possible, what is advisable.

[00:09:31] Lily: Yeah.

[00:09:32] David: And so if as a teacher you’re finding you’re not putting the attention and the effort in to the students who are not disruptive, then almost certainly that balance is wrong.

[00:09:45] Lily: Absolutely. Yeah, okay, that’s really interesting. I guess then it’s defining what the context is. I guess to me, I was thinking that the context are the different students, and that while that can be true, it’s more that the context is the school and their resources, because you’re confined by those constraints.

[00:10:01] David: But it could also be the cultures. Context can mean many different things.

[00:10:06] Lily: Yes.

[00:10:06] David: I would argue that what is important is your unit of intervention is not your context. So in the sense that you’re sort of looking at different students, the needs of different students, in some sense if your intervention is at the student level, your context is a bigger level.

[00:10:26] Lily: Yes. Okay.

[00:10:27] David: That’s how options by context work. It’s saying that if your options are acting on a crop, then your context is the environment in which that crop is growing.

[00:10:39] Lily: Yes, okay.

[00:10:40] David: So if your options are acting on the individual students, your environment is, let’s say, the school or the environment those students are living in. So in the options by context concept, that’s what it’s thinking about. What you’re really talking about when you’re talking about, should different individuals be treated differently, or is it fairer to treat everyone the same, you’re talking about the difference between equity and equality, and there’s a whole set of discussions we could have about equity and equality.

And, you know, actually in the US, of course, right now, this has all come up because DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, has suddenly fallen out of favor with the American government.

[00:11:27] Lily: Yeah.

[00:11:28] David: To the extent, this is very interesting, that this now means for the first time there is a legal difference between US 5013C’s charities and UK charities in terms of what they can do. So whereas before actually the legality of doing things across the Atlantic in terms of the charitable sector, was all very easy and well defined, now suddenly it’s become much harder because diversity, equity and inclusion is explicitly excluded from being a charitable function in the U. S. for the first time.

This comes back to this question of equity versus equality. And that’s a whole nother debate, which I love having. And that’s much closer to the discussion that you were alluding to as to should different students be treated differently based on their needs versus everybody being treated the same. And that’s the debate about equity and equality.

And my favourite example of this is you have three people each standing on one box and trying to watch a football game or something over a fence. And, of course, one of them can see it very easily because they didn’t need the box. The other person can just see it and the third person can’t see above the fence. And then you find the same three boxes now positioned differently so the person who was very tall who can see over the fence without a box doesn’t need a box, doesn’t have a box, the person who just needed one box has one box. And the person who needs two boxes had two boxes. And everybody gets to see the game.

And that’s sort of the discussion about, you know equality is everybody gets the same, everyone gets one box, but equity is about to have the same result, different people needed different numbers of boxes. And so that’s the equality, equity discussion. Beautiful image.

[00:13:27] Lily: It is. Yeah, I’ve seen the image before and I completely agree, it’s a really nice way to explain it. I guess, does that oversimplify it? Because I guess in the box example, no one’s being, I don’t even mean disadvantaged. So for example, by being a woman in STEM, am I being advantaged? Does that mean other people are being disadvantaged?

[00:13:49] David: Okay, I can speak to that very explicitly because I was on admission at AIMS, the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and they had a policy where they wanted at least 30 percent of the students to be women. And in the actual selection criteria, it got to the point where actually the average entry requirements for women was considerably lower than the average for male candidates.

So this is a very explicit case where there was a arbitrary, if you want, 33%, at least a third have to be women, wasn’t totally arbitrary, but it was definitely, if you want, a form of positive discrimination.

[00:14:38] Lily: Yeah.

[00:14:38] David: But, by and large, I was always so comfortable with it, because when you looked at the top applicants, who could do well in the program, actually, you could go quite a long way down. Yes, of course, there’s some individuals who may feel hard done by, they could have got a place if only there wasn’t this requirement, and then you just have had male students.

But in that context, the female students were certainly getting above a bar whereby they could find success and in fact, many of them were finding exceptional success from being in that environment and being part of that.

And so the question there was, by having that requirement to be at least a third women, were you actually, as a program, getting a better cohort or a worse cohort? And I would argue, I was very comfortable that they were getting a better cohort of students. They had the diversity of perspectives, the diversity of people, by and large.

There were a few exceptions where somehow people did slip through on both the male and the female side who were too weak for the program. This wasn’t something where that criteria was leading to there being many more students who shouldn’t have been there. It was actually everybody who was there was good enough to be there.

Could you have had some individuals who could have benefited from that who didn’t get access? Yes, but there were so many who could have benefited from it who didn’t get access because there weren’t enough spaces and the students who were there benefited from the diversity. And so they got a better education as such.

And the opportunities that came out of that, for the whole cohort were better. And the reasons there weren’t as many women who were competing at the top level was easily identifiable because in many of the countries that they were coming from there was a huge disadvantage for women coming through the system in mass.

So it was not that there was less potential or less talent. It was that there had been less opportunity. And really, what you were doing is you were saying actually, by having this criteria for so many people joining at this point, we are creating an environment which leads to better education and a better qualification at the end. And therefore, it was positive for the qualification as a whole.

Is that true in all contexts? I don’t know because I don’t know all contexts. What I do know is specific contexts.

[00:17:35] Lily: Yeah.

[00:17:36] David: In the specific context where I’ve seen it used well, it has enhanced the program. It’s enhanced so many without compromising it.

[00:17:48] Lily: Yeah.

[00:17:48] David: So the question is, can these sorts of things be used? Yes. Have I seen instances where they use less? That as well. And I’ll give an example of that. There is the best scholarship I know for African students to do international PhDs is a women’s only scholarship.

[00:18:12] Lily: Okay.

[00:18:13] David: It’s a wonderful scholarship, and it builds cohorts of fantastic female faculty in different ways, and it’s great. I would argue that the problem with that as a scholarship is not that scholarship. It’s that there’s not an equivalent type of scholarship which doesn’t have the gender requirement. So if you do have an exceptional student, just exceptional, then there is no equivalent scholarship for them to be able to go for.

That’s a sort of different thing. Now, is this a criticism of that scholarship? No, it’s a criticism of the scholarship landscape. And that’s where I would argue that there’s elements of, if I have a really strong African student who I think could do a great international PhD, if they’re a woman, I know where to send them. If they’re not, I say good luck to them.

[00:19:18] Lily: Okay.

[00:19:19] David: That’s the problem. If there’s a competitive process, and so on, and there’s an opportunity for everyone, great. But right now, that’s about understanding the landscape within which you are creating these opportunities.

[00:19:33] Lily: Interesting. Okay. I can see why I got confused between this option by context and this equity and equality.

[00:19:40] David: Yeah.

[00:19:41] Lily: But with the equity and equality, it’s about having that, I don’t think I’ll be able to sum up anything in a nutshell, I guess that’s the whole point of these kinds of complex ideas, but it’s about having like those opportunities still there for other people. And it might just be that the bar is different.

[00:20:00] David: The bar might be different or there might be different ways where you’re actively enabling access for people who would otherwise be excluded. And this is why it’s such a surprise to me that diversity, equity, inclusion has become a divisive concept. Because I understand how in certain cases this may be, and I’ll give one other example that I know where this has been used badly.

[00:20:35] Lily: Okay.

[00:20:36] David: And this is within UN structures. So I’ve got colleagues within this, but it’s also something which I’ve observed where these quotas at high levels have led to the recruitment of people who have been set up to fail. And the key point is the following. When I discussed this for the students, the female students who were being admitted were being set up to succeed.

[00:21:08] Lily: Okay.

[00:21:08] David: They were good enough to succeed. If you choose someone who is below the bar where they can find success in the program, you are setting them up to fail. Now, setting people up to fail, everybody loses because now you’ve got people who are coming out and they’re not taking advantage of the opportunity they’re being given. They’re not gaining from that. And you’re excluding the person who would have done it really well and gained from it.

And so the key point is, you’ve got to have somebody where, if you’re going to use any form of criteria, to be able to promote a percentage of people from a certain background or a certain gender or whatever it is, then they have to be people who are going to succeed.

[00:22:01] Lily: Yeah. So where that bar is still needs to be at a sensible level, but it’s more about we have loads of great students.

[00:22:11] David: Exactly. We’ve got a lot of great students who are both male and female for various reasons. If we were to just select on standard criteria, then we would get an unbiased proportion, let’s say, of male students, because more male students have access to whatever it is in their context, which means this, but we have more than enough students who are good enough to succeed, and therefore the program as a whole benefits by having that better balance of male and female students, and those individuals are being set up for success.

[00:22:52] Lily: Yeah.

[00:22:52] David: The key thing is, the program is all about creating people and setting them up for success. And this is where in the context where the people who are being promoted or being put into those positions where they aren’t succeeding or they’re not being set up for success, that’s terrible. Everybody loses.

[00:23:16] Lily: I get it. Okay.

[00:23:18] David: So what I’m arguing here, and I don’t want to enter into sort of big culture wars on this or anything. What I do want to make clear is that there are elements of, if you want, contextual understanding. So one of the other things, for example, that would happen, if you were to not take context into account in the AIMS criteria, almost certainly all your students would come from Nigeria. Why? Because within Africa, a quarter of Africa’s population is in Nigeria and they have a very good education system churning out a lot of good math graduates. You could easily fill up the whole program with Nigerians.

Another criteria that they had was a certain number per country and so trying to get a diversity of countries represented in the program. This is again where, the Nigerians were therefore competing with itself. If you were from Nigeria, the students from Nigeria tended to be excellent, not just because the Nigerian education system was good, but because the competition to get in from Nigeria was so competitive because there were so many good students applying.

Whereas if you were trying to get in from Chad, it was less competitive because there were less Chadians who are applying. Now that is a good thing because what you want is you want that diversity of different cultures, different backgrounds, and it enhances the program. This is another example of where I would argue it is about sometimes recognising that in this context the program benefits from this differentiated selection approach.

And what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to get the best set of students for the program. It is not about giving equal chances for any student to be accepted.

[00:25:23] Lily: Yeah.

[00:25:25] David: And so if I’m telling people to apply, if I’m talking to Kenyans, I’m saying, well, you know, apply to the places where Kenyans wouldn’t think to apply. Apply to AIMS Senegal because there will be less Kenyans applying there and therefore it will be less competitive to get in. And I have a number of Kenyan students who have done that and successfully gone to AIMS Senegal and got a very good education.

[00:25:47] Lily: In French.

[00:25:50] David: With French, and they then learned to speak French, and it was part of it. And the fact that they were willing to apply for that made them stand out there. And in the application process, they therefore had a different perspective than if they’d applied to a centre like Rwanda, which is just a neighbouring country and everyone in Kenya thinks, oh, going to Rwanda is easy, Rwanda is not far from us. It’s a similar culture.

And so, actually understanding that how, if you have these criterias in place, there are things that students can do to improve their odds in different ways. And it’s not fair or equal for everyone in the sense that if you apply to the same place that all the other Kenyans apply to, then your chances will be less than if you apply to somewhere where less Kenyans apply.

But this isn’t a bad thing. This is part of actually good selection processes. And that’s what I would be arguing more generally, that the program should be enhanced by that diversity. If it is not, then the selection process isn’t helping it. But if the value of the program, the education it gives is enhanced, then yes, that diversity, looking for that diversity as part of the criteria is going to be a positive element.

[00:27:15] Lily: Very interesting. There’s so much more I want to say but I am concerned about the time. But definitely I see that it’s just down to this kind of context of like, can you apply equity and equality rules and to what extent do you apply those rules?

[00:27:31] David: And this is not easy.

[00:27:32] Lily: No.

[00:27:32] David: I am not saying that this should always be applied and there should be blanket things. There’s been immense harm which has been done by being applied thoughtlessly and badly. And I want to reinforce, if you take on a student who then fails, it’s not just bad for the program, it’s bad for the student.

[00:27:52] Lily: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:27:53] David: And this is the sort of context, and I will just put this back to the context where you originally had it, giving extra attention to the person who’s playing up, if that extra attention doesn’t really help them in whatever ways, then that extra attention is not only detracting from other people, but it’s not helping them.

And I’ve seen these things in certain cases. But there’s other cases where you actually find through that extra attention, maybe they need less attention in the future and or they’re able to then engage in ways they weren’t and they actually succeed, and therefore they’re brought in in a way which they couldn’t have otherwise and they’re allowed to flourish.

And that doesn’t need to be at the expense of others flourishing if the resources are enough. So a lot depends on the resource constraints on the actual context. And that’s really the heart of it. That if we’re not looking at options by context, which is very different about doing things differently in different contexts, but we’re looking at equity versus equality. Well, a big question is, do you have the resources? Is there the opportunity to offer things to think about equity in a way which actually serves the wider good and group?

[00:29:18] Lily: Thank you very much. I think that we should leave it there on that. But thank you very much. That’s been a really interesting conversation as always.

[00:29:25] David: No, thanks. It’s been fun.