What is Systemic Equity™?

Systemic Equity™ is as complex as it is simple. To support understanding and sharing, there is a quick video introduction to the right, and there are three explanations you can explore below. Though I encourage all to watch the video and read this whole page, there is guidance below regarding what section might be best for you.

For individuals, teachers, and leaders who may be new to equity work, I recommend you start from the beginning, where we explore Systemic Equity using the analogy of fire safety in our work environments. There is also a supporting video for easy access.

For individuals, teachers, and leaders who are familiar with equity work, you may find lots of value in the second section, where we explore Systemic Equity through a Goal, Problem, and Solution lens.

For leaders and decision-makers who need the details as you explore whether Systemic Equity is an approach suitable for your school or organisation, the final section contains the information you need.

Section 1 – An Introduction to Systemic Equity

If you hear something racist in your community, would you feel ready to put out that fire?

Let me introduce you to Systemic Equity™.

But to explain it, I want you to imagine there’s actually a fire at your school or organisation.

How will people respond?

You probably have an annual fire drill, and individual staff are trained to make sure everyone is safe in the event of a fire.

But, there are 3 problems here:

People might have missed the drill or the training.
They forget what they learned.
They didn’t actively engage with the training as they see it as a tick box exercise.

Of course, you expected this, and to prepare for these 3 problems, you kitted out the building with fire and smoke detectors, clear signs, a fire alarm linked to the local fire department, fire extinguishers with instructions, and a sprinkler system.

This means that as soon as a fire is detected, there are systems in place to help protect the community and ensure that help is accessible, even if people forget their training.

So what if you applied these principles to ensure the safety of your community from discrimination and inequity?

Systemic Equity™ is how you achieve this.

It’s your smoke detector, your fire alarm, and your fire extinguishers with clear instructions. Systemic Equity means that when individuals need it, there are systems in place that intentionally detect inequity, are easy to use, and ultimately make sure the community can access help for equitable outcomes.

Even if a teacher or leader misses their DEI training or perhaps did not fully understand or engage with it, you and your community collectively can be confident that there will be a response to any equity ‘fires’ as people make use of the clear systems put in place.

The most progressive schools and organisations, and even accrediting bodies, have recognised that DEI ‘fire drills’, such as unconscious bias training and microaggressions training, are important, but a 2-hour CPD alone cannot ensure consistently equitable outcomes for our communities. For that, we need systems with impacts we can monitor, which can operate beyond the expertise of the individual.

Systemic Equity provides this and aims for consistently equitable outcomes for everyone in the community.

Section 2 – The goal, the problem, and the solution

🎯The goal

When we think about ensuring child safety, we think of strictly enforced policies regarding how we engage with children. Systemic Equity says that the same can be done to address discrimination and inequity in schools. By creating policies which support the outcomes detailed in our school or organisation’s mission and values, we can ensure consistently equitable outcomes for all members of the community.

Systemic Equity refers to the policies and procedures designed to achieve the school or organisation’s mission and values.

To understand the goal of Systemic Equity, we need to start with community. Your learning community is unique. For Systemic Equity to happen, your first step is to look at your mission and values, your vision of what this will look like as a lived reality, and the policies and procedures you have in place to support the creation of this environment. Then, zoom out and see what actions people are taking, the behaviours they are adopting, how people are separated and brought together, and the impact this has on each individual in the community.

Now, what would these policies or procedures look like if they truly met your school or organisation’s mission and values for each individual in the community?

This is where Systemic Equity™ comes in.

Systemic Equity will help you identify areas where your school or organisation’s mission and values are not being met and create systems to make them a lived reality—a lived reality that reaches every person in the community, not just a select few.

🚩The problem

The past decades have seen the compartmentalisation of DEI roles in schools, excessive use of identity labels that separate our communities, and increased reliance on CPD, which places the responsibility on the individual for equitable outcomes. However, the work is not sustainable without supporting systems and procedures that hold the community accountable for the impact of these initiatives.

Many schools, educational organisations, and accrediting bodies recognise that isolated individuals cannot resolve DEI challenges. Educational professionals, especially as individuals, often do not feel equipped to solve DEI challenges or may resist work which labels them as the ones needing to change using language such as ‘the oppressor’ or ‘the privileged’.

✅The solution

So, what is the best way to approach achieving your mission?

Systemically.

For your school or organisation’s mission to be achieved, systemic change is needed. Structures must be placed to guide and support the creation of consistently equitable outcomes which are not reliant on personal revelation or labelling. To be systemic the change must be:

Reproducible
Monitored
Given value and rewarded through administrative procedures
Self-maintaining beyond the input of a passionate individual

With Systemic Equity, changing policies and procedures will influence individual behaviours and form an equitable community infrastructure which can persist through changes in leadership, staff turnover, and is scalable to changes in school size.

Section 3 – The key principles and approaches of Systemic Equity

If you have made it this far, it is time for more technical details and the key approaches that you need to know as a leader or to share with your decision-makers.

“As a service to the community, education should not only be safe and accessible to as many people as possible but also positively support their success. This access should be without barriers or discriminatory treatment based on a person’s identity, lived reality, or given labels—a point of universal agreement within progressive and student-centred education.” Daryl Sinclair

Systemic Equity™ is an approach to what is commonly termed DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) work. It is unique from other methods because it prioritises the practical actions and indicators of impact within the specific context of a community.

Traditional DEI work is often associated with morally based and label intense programs such as implicit bias training, transforming your privilege training, cultural sensitivity training, and anti-oppression training. These forms of training have value and should be part of any long-term DEI journey, but the explicit focus on the individual and the use of homogenising labels such as privileged and oppressor can cause pushback from individuals and leaders. This resistance, especially when procedural support and monitoring are absent, limits the impact and sustainability of the work.

The non-ideological stance of Systemic Equity™ seeks to change processes and resulting behaviours, not hearts and minds. Supporting the creation of environments and systems that promote and sustain equitable outcomes by design, not personal intent. The proverbial Cognitive-Behavioural-Therapy of the DEI world, Systemic Equity™ uses action-based principles such as:

Holistic focus on the present: Emphasising the current reality and experiences seen within the community as a result of existing procedures, norms, and behaviours.
Rigorous and dynamic objectives: Supporting the realisation of the community mission through explicit and dynamic objectives with space for continuous improvement.
Unifying through identity: Breaking down categorisation to focus on characteristics that bring people together.
Changing actions and creating opportunities: Establishing new procedures, norms, and behaviours through administering and providing value to engagement with the changes.
Clear, actionable pathways: The creation of schedules of specific action with indicators of impact to track and be accountable for progress, changes, setbacks, and success.
Contextual customisation: Ensuring the systems created meet the desired impacts, mission, values, and lived reality of your community, including alignment with the requirements of accrediting bodies such as CIS, NEASC, OFSTED, IBDP, and more.

With these principles, Systemic Equity™ can be the critical approach to effectively achieving your organisation’s mission and ensuring consistently equitable outcomes for your learning community.

I look forward to hearing from you with your questions and how you would like to start your journey to Systemic Equity™.

About Daryl Sinclair

Daryl Sinclair is an educator, geographer, and DEIJ specialist who believes in a systems approach to educational success. He champions Systemic Equity™, taking a non-ideological approach to DEIJ (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice) that focuses on practical actions and indicators of impact that create learning environments that realise the learning community’s mission. Through his writing and consultancy work with exam boards, schools, and publishers, he champions the idea that the success of leadership and DEIJ initiatives is in what we DO, not simply what we believe. Daryl’s work focuses on your journey towards consistently equitable outcomes for all members of your learning community.

Take your first step to Systemic Equity™ www.dsinclairwriting.com/consultancy

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darylsinclairgeography/