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As instructors interpret and apply the DIA criteria in language, concepts, and methods appropriate in their disciplines and fields of study, it may be helpful to know more about the ideas that informed the creation of the DIA requirement and criteria, which are briefly summarized below.
Inclusion of some content that features “scholarship, cultural production, perspectives, and voices from members of communities historically marginalized by…legacies of inequality.”
The above criterion is intended to foreground those who have experienced marginalization as a result of power imbalances and inequality so that students can learn from them and not merely “about” them. In addition, the intent is to have DIA courses include a range of different types of knowledge as valid sources of evidence and insight for the study of society.
Engagement that addresses each of the following:
- “Intersecting aspects of identity such as race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, indigeneity, national origin, religion, or ability.
- The uses of power to classify, rank, and marginalize on the basis of these aspects of identity, as well as considerations of agency on the part of marginalized groups.
- Historical structures, contemporary structures, forms of knowledge, cultural practices, or ideologies that perpetuate or change the distribution of power in society.”
The intent of the above set of three criteria is to help students learn how power operates to shape society in unequal ways, including consideration of how those marginalized by inequality exert agency. Specifically, the criterion on “intersecting aspects of identity” is intended to help students learn that social identity is multiple, constituted by a variety of aspects, and not reducible to a single, “essential” characteristic. Moreover, the intention is for students to learn that power shapes people’s lives unevenly across these different aspects, such that some aspects of identity confer privileges and benefits, whereas others bring oppression and harms. The idea is that consideration of the intersecting forces of power across multiple identities (“intersectionality”) is necessary in order to understand a person’s or group’s social position and experiences of privilege and inequality, and this position and experience is in dynamic relation with the positions and experiences of others.
The criterion on “uses of power” helps students learn the specific ways that power actually works across multiple social identities, as noted. The focus is on how certain people or groups use (or even construct) different aspects of identity (“difference”) to establish hierarchies of value that privilege some identities and experiences over others, which in turn is used to “justify” inequalities. This criterion is also intended to provide students with opportunity to learn how those whose identities or experiences are marginalized resist dominating power or initiate movements for change.
The criterion on “structures” helps students learn about how the specific uses of power are organized and instituted as social forces – and not merely as individual prejudices or attitudes – that operate in various ways (as “structures,” “forms of knowledge,” “practices,” etc.) to reproduce or alter how power is distributed unevenly across society. A related intent is to help students learn that power and its effects – such as inequality – are not “natural” or “fixed” but socially produced, dynamic, and changeable.
Occasion to undertake one or more of the following:
- “Teach respectful listening and tools for ethical dialogues in order to expand students’ abilities to practice civil conversation and engage with deeply felt or controversial issues.
- Facilitate student reflection on their own multiple social identifications and on how these identifications are formed and located in relation to power.”
The final two criteria above – instructors must include at least one in their DIA course – are intended to provide students with an opportunity to learn and practice specific, important skills of cultural and equity literacy. The first criterion on “listening” and “dialogue” is intended to help students develop their capacity for interacting with diverse others on important social issues. This entails learning and practicing how to enter into discussion with others about salient, often charged issues, and how to participate ethically across social differences. An ability to listen to others’ ideas and views charitably, and to articulate one’s own ideas productively – with care, self-awareness, and evidence – are intended outcomes of developing this capacity.
The criterion on “student reflection” is intended to help students develop their capacity for critical examination of their own social identities in relation to power, and how power mediates their relationships with others. Empathy for others and an ability to identify strategic points of intervention to make change happen to promote equity, are intended outcomes of developing this capacity.
