Area 2: Working with and valuing minoritised communities

The second Equity Compass area is called ‘Working with and valuing minoritised communities’, which includes two equity dimensions: Participatory working – with and an Asset-based approach.

In this video, Louise explains what the two dimensions entail and gives examples of reflection questions.

• Participatory working – with is about meaningfully involving participants in the programming and design, working with participants rather than delivering content to them in a one-way manner. For example, to what extent do participants have a say in the design and the conduct of the activities?
• Asset-based approach focuses on recognising and valuing a broad range of participants’ skills, knowledge, experiences and who they are – within and beyond STEM. For example, how do you recognise and value wider forms of expertise? Or might you inadvertently take a deficit-based approach, treating the participants as lacking the ‘right’ interest, attitudes and knowledge that is expected within the specific informal STEM learning setting?

Next, we use the questions introduced within this Equity Compass area to think about a case duty we introduced in Week 1. Remember Phil and Nikki’s ‘Introduction to coding’ workshop? We will read the same case study, but examine the situation from a different perspective.