Social Inclusion and Equity

Cluster Leader – Rachelle Hole

Social inclusion and equity are fundamental principles of social justice. The goal of social inclusion is to ensure that individuals, groups, and communities participate fully in meaningful ways in society. Underlying this goal is an understanding that individuals and groups are shaped by elements of identity such as race, gender, class, ability, sexuality (to name only some), and these affect experiences of social inclusion and social exclusion. Community and university members of this research cluster engage in collaborative and participatory action research that promotes/produces social inclusion and equity: that is, research that affects social change and creates the conditions for people to be accepted and to participate fully within society. Researchers in this cluster focus on understanding the ways social, cultural, colonial, economic, political, and spatial factors create and recreate social relations that produce social exclusion and on the factors and processes that achieve social inclusion in order to promote equity.

This was a meeting of the Interdisciplinary Disability and Inclusion Research Collaborative (IDIRC). The group is comprised of UBC O faculty, staff and students interested in critical disability studies and issues of equity and inclusion.

A workshop with the Centre for Inclusion & Citizenship and the Okanagan Nation Alliance on Aboriginal Communities’ Perspectives on Disability: Exploring the Dialogue with the Communtiy Living Sector.