1. The Relevance of Affirmative Action and the difference between Diversity and Social Justice
Carmen Milagros Vélez Vega
Associate Professor & Chair
Social Sciences Department
University of Puerto Rico,
Medical Sciences Campus
School of Public Health

2. Critical Constructionist Framework
From a critical constructionist perspective changes in language in and of itself constitutes a means for transformation of social constructions and what results from these.
Social constructions are the shared understandings about our social context.
They are dynamic, we develop them though interaction
They change and can be changed with purpose…
For example: What is a Puerto Rican Student, a Student with Disabilities, a Student with an LGBT identity, a Student that comes from an economically challenged background?
I have faced many times the question and comment: Are you Puertorrican? You don’t look like it. To which I answer: What does a Puertorrican look like? I can help myself but think I am being compared to María in West Side Story. The same happends when I say I am a Lesbian. Somehow I believe people are thinking of a woman that looks and acts like a man (whatever stereotype that brings to mind) or Ellen Degeneres. I only wish I were that funny.

4. Social Determinants of Health
SDH are the economic and social conditions that influence the health of individuals, communities, and jurisdictions as a whole (WHO, 2011).

5. SDH include, but are not limited to: (CDC, 2010).
income, and income distribution;
social exclusion;
the social safety net;
job security;
economic and social conditions
early childhood development;
education,
employment, and work;
food security,
health services
housing,

6. Marco Conceptual de los DSS de la Organización Mundial de la Salud

7. Stunting es arrestar el desarrollo.

9. Diversity vs Social Justice
The term diversity captures the differences among social groups, but not the ways in which these differences are shaped by systems of domination, subordination, and inequality.
Distinction between Diversity and the different experiences of being different and why it occurs and how it manifests.
the goal of SJ does not make diversity invisible but deals with the conditions and structures, interaction. Unequal status is not attended by a diversity embrace and accept perspective.
Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar.

10. Social Justice vs Diversity
The term social justice captures the emphasis upon social structures and practices by which one social group, whether knowingly or unconsciously, exploits other social groups for its advantage. Social justice requires not the elimination of differences, but the elimination of domination, subordination, and inequality.

11. Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu
Challenging Our Own Comfort Zones, as well as those of our students and colleagues
Action
Learning Edge
Threat
Fear
Comfort Zone
Status Quo
Difference between safety and comfort
Cognitive disonance can help challenge out of the comfort zone and promote learning.
Information
Awareness
Learning Edge
Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar.

12. Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu
Some Distinctions
Diversity Approaches generally focus on
appreciating social differences
without analyses of power and privilege
or differential access to resources and institutional support needed to live safe, satisfying productive lives
Goal is appreciation and awareness
Social Justice Education approaches generally focus on
understanding the structural dynamics of unequal social power that
results in some social groups having privilege, status, access
that are denied to other groups.
Goal is an understanding and analysis that results in individual and social action to interrupt and/or eliminate oppression
Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar.

13. Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. adams@educ.umass.edu
Social Oppression
A social condition that establishes and maintains many forms of advantage and disadvantage based on real or presumed social group memberships.
Social oppression operates on individual, institutional and societal/cultural levels
Institutional oppression (en los espacios institucionales por joven, por viejo, genero…
conceptos como discriminacion y prejuicios
Sizeim as a product of sexism, social class, ableism, racism.
Presumed social groups, presumed as inferior due to a hegemonic construct of what should be. Example intents to change the organic composision of maiz to help central and south american children grow larger more similar to the hegemonic body.
Adams, 2008, NYU FRN seminar. 13

14. Some Social Identity Categories
Sex
Race
Class
Religion
Ability/Disability
Age
Gender
Sexual Orientation
Ethnicity
Language
Nationality 14

15. Manifestations of Social Oppression
Sexism
Racism
Religious
Oppression
Ableism
Classism
Heterosexism
Ageism
Are some forms of oppression more fundamental than others?
You can argue for many forms of oppression as fundamental.
Power and the reproduction of power and it plays out in different ways
Cultural capital
Resources of power (micro powers Foucault)
Transgender
Oppression
Ethnocentrism

16. Examples of Social Identity Categories and Social Group membership
Race
Black, White, Asian, Latino, native American, Multiracial
Sex
Female, Male, Intersex
Gender
Men, Women, Transgender, Genderqueer
Religion
Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon, Espiritista, Santería…
Sexual Orientation
Lesbian, Gay, bisexual, Heterosexual
Class
Owning Class, Poor, Upper Middle, Middle/Middle, Working class
Ability
Disabled, Temporarily Able-bodied
Age
Elders, Adults, Young People

17. Levels of the Manifestations of Oppression
intentional and unintentional
Individual attitudes and/or behaviors. (e.g. acts of violence, prejudice, ignorance, hatred)
Institutional policy, practice, norms
Cultural assumptions, norms and practice 17

18. Conclusions or More Questions?
What must be done to continue correcting these great social injustices and provide opportunities and supports for students that are diverse and oppressed that belong to groups protected under Affirmative Action Policies?
How do we do justice to the demographic and economical changes that have brought to light the many other groups of people that face disparate educational opportunities?

19. A useful tool for exploring the complexity of Diversity vs Social Justice
Based on:
Five Faces of Oppression by Iris Marion Young, in Justice and the Politics of Difference.
This text is available at:

20. Worksheet: in pairs give examples of each of the “5 faces of oppression”
Exploitation
Marginalization
Powerlessness
Cultural imperialism
Violence & the normalization of violence

21. Worksheet: 5 faces x levels
Individual
Institutional
Cultural & Societal
Exploitation
Marginalization
Powerlessness
Cultural
Imperialism
Violence & normalization of violence
June 9, 2008

22. A Systemic and Complex Analysis of Affirmative Action Policies
Taking into consideration the difference between Diversity and Social Justice framework and Policies.
Looking into the complexity of human identities and contexts where ethnicity, sex, and others are frequently intersecting identities in one person.

23. We must consider which are the social and material differences that interfere with opportunities; not only to be admitted to Institutions of Higher Education, but also with the survival in an unfamiliar social context to which we have no reference or map to guide us.