EDI as a Form of Institutional Activism: Canadian Universities' Fight Against Inequality and Discrimination.


Yena Lee, McMaster University

The question of eradicating inequalities has been at the centre of socio-political issues from varying aspects of our society in the last few decades. In the recent years, universities have been at the centre of eradicating inequalities as they tend to uphold an image of institutions that are progressive and leading changes. Following this trend, Canadian universities have adopted the notion of EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) more rigorously in the last few years, especially in the wake of the proliferation of protest actions in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and #StopAsianHate. As universities began to show support for these social movements by providing official statements to the public, as well as introducing policies that undermine barriers to racism and gender equality, these maneuvers should be examined to see whether they hold meaningful values. In the process of institutionalizing social changes, organizations like universities respond to contexts, but create constraints as well. As institutions operate within a long history of racism and colonialism in settings like Canada, there are unspoken rules and established status quo that play a significant role in shaping policies and practices. Therefore, in this research, I will be using examples of higher education to analyze responses to the 2020 social movements against racism by top Canadian universities by focusing on English speaking U15 universities. In this research, data driven from online publications by universities as well as interviews with the heads of EDI offices will be examined to provide better understanding of the topic. Overall, this research will contribute to the literature within the fields of social movement theory and the sociology of education. This will be done through the examination of the potential for social movements to produce social change within higher education by examining the strategic responses to the opportunities produced by social movement activity and the constraints within institutions that prevent social change.

This paper will be presented at the following session: