Module 5

In this module, we focus on formulating next steps for IDEA at your institution. This should be used as a closing module after a longer capacity building process with professionals at your institution, for example at the end of a workshop day or training sessions focusing on IDEA.

We use an adaptation of Barbara Love’s (2010) liberatory consciousness framework to guide this process (figure 12). In her framework, Love outlines four principles for individuals committed to challenge inequity within institutions and systems: awareness, analysis, action and accountability/allyship. These principles aim to foster a mindset and practice that supports justice, equity, and liberation for all.

In this specific context, we understand these principles as follows:

1. Awareness: Recognizing and understanding the existence of inequities and how they operate at individual, institutional, and systemic levels is our starting point. This involves continuous self-reflection and learning about privilege, power, and marginalization. This is what the previous modules aim to contribute to.
2. Analysis: This involves developing a deeper understanding of the causes and mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization. To analyze means to connect personal experiences to broader social structures and histories, and identifying patterns and systems of injustice. In this context, we aim to analyze how inequities translate to and manifest in your institution. This can for example mean you consider how exclusion affects certain groups in the classroom, in HR practices, in (the lack of) support services, etc. It is essential to conduct this analysis, as simply implementing good practices from other institutions can lead to ineffective interventions that do not fit your institutional context.
3. Action: Action means taking intentional steps to challenge and disrupt inequities. This includes speaking out, organizing, supporting others, and creating change through daily behaviors and larger movements. In this context, it can also mean designing and implementing IDEA at your institution.
4. Accountability/allyship: This involves being responsible for one’s role in sustaining or dismantling oppression. It involves listening, learning from marginalized communities, building trust, and acting in solidarity with integrity and humility. In this context, it can also relate to monitoring, evaluating and being accountable for implemented IDEA-initiatives.

As this is a closing workshop to develop the next steps for IDEA at your institution, we focus on the principles Analysis and Action in this module’s activity.