EQUITY INQUIRY CYCLES
EQUITY INQUIRY CYCLES
EQUITY INQUIRY STARTER KIT
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The limitations of data in small and mid-sized districts make it challenging, if not impossible to use traditional methods and metrics to detect patterns of inequity through an equity audit.
Equity audits, in and of themselves, offer schools little support or guidance for action beyond recommendations. Schools and leaders are often on their own in figuring out how to transform conditions for students and families at the margins of our systems.
EQUITY INQUIRY CYCLES
“Transformation doesn’t happen in a linear way, at least not one we can always track. It happens in cycles, convergences, explosions. If we release the framework of failure, we can realize that we are in iterative cycles, and we can keep asking ourselves—how do I learn from this?”
– adrienne marie brown, Emergent Strategy
➨ Our adoption of the term and practice of equity inquiry cycle is informed by three core understandings:
Equity audits are largely ineffective in sustaining meaningful change if carried out as one-off events; equity audits, if conducted, need to be one part of ongoing cycles of inquiry and improvement in order to succeed at improving equity
There are unique considerations in mid-size but especially in small districts that make “traditional” equity audits impossible and that require ongoing and sensitive approaches
All equity processes, including audits, improvement or inquiry cycles, must be humanizing experiences that center the voices and needs of those who have traditionally been on the margins, while striving to keep them safe
There are various traditions of equity, inquiry and action cycles. We draw primarily on the work of Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan’s in the book Street Data where they describe the Equity Transformation Cycle and share a range of humanizing and student centered data collection methods.
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