Helpful Terms and Definitions
The following terms and definitions are used when talking about Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging. They are also used in the Campus Climate Survey on Diversity and Inclusion.
Administrators: University employees who serve in senior leadership roles that inform campus policy and practices at a high level, such as Deans, Directors, Provosts, Vice Presidents, and the President at the University
Ally: Someone who supports a group other than one’s own (in terms of multiple identities such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.). An ally acknowledges oppression and actively commits to reducing their own complicity, investing in strengthening their own knowledge and awareness of oppression
Anti-Black: A two-part formation that both voids Blackness of value, while systemically marginalizing Black people and their issues. The first form of anti-blackness is overt racism. The second form of anti0Blackness is the unethical disregard for anti-Black institutions and policies.
Anti-racism: The work of actively opposing racism by advocating for changes in political, economic, and social life. Anti-racism tends to be an individualized approach and set up in opposition to individual racist behaviors and impacts. It involves self-reflection and accountability.
Bias: A form of prejudice that results from our need to quickly classify individuals into categories
Bigot: A person who is obstinately devoted to their own opinions and prejudices and is intolerant towards other diverse social groups
BIPoC: An Acronym used to refer to black, indigenous and people of color. It is based on the recognition of collective experiences of systemic racism. As with any other identity term, it is up to individuals to use this term as an identifier.
Campus Climate: Current attitudes, behaviors, and standards held by members of the campus community regarding how inclusive and welcoming the campus is for individuals from various backgrounds and experiences
Cisgender: A term for people whose gender identity, expression or behavior aligns with those typically associated with their assigned sex at birth.
Colonization: Form of invasion, dispossession, and subjugation of a people, resulting in dispossession, dehumanization, and/or enslavement of vast amounts of lands and culture from the original inhabitants. Colonization is often legalized after the fact.
Color Blind: The belief that everyone should be treated “equally” without respect to societal, economic, historical, racial, or other difference. No differences are seen or acknowledged; everyone is the same.
Critical Race Theory: Considers many of the same issues that conventional civil rights and ethnic studies take up but places them in a broader perspective that includes economics, history, and conscious/unconscious feelings. Unlike traditional civil rights, critical race theory questions the very foundations of systemic racism.
Cultural Appropriation: The non-consensual/misappropriate use of cultural elements for commodification or profit purposes – including symbols, art, language, customs, etc. – often without understanding, acknowledgment or respect for its value in the context of its original culture.
Decolonize: The active and intentional process of unlearning values, beliefs and conceptions that have caused physical, emotional, or mental harm to people through colonization. It requires a recognition of systems of oppression.
Deaf: A term used to self-identify within Deaf culture and to claim membership of the Deaf community and its values, language, history, and culture.
Diaspora: The voluntary or forcible movement of peoples from their homelands into new regions.
Disability: Term used to describe a person who has a physical, cognitive/mental, sensory, emotional or developmental impairment which substantially limits one or more major life activities
Diversity: Socially, it refers to a wide range of identities. It broadly includes race, ethnicity, gender, age, national origin, religion, disability, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, veteran status, physical appearance, etc. It also involves different ideas, perspectives, and values.
Discrimination: The unequal treatment of members of various groups, based on conscious or unconscious prejudice, which favors one group over others on differences of race, gender, economic class, sexual orientation, physical ability or appearance, religion, language, age, national identity, religion, and other categories
Enslaved Peoples vs. Slave: When talking about the inhuman treatment and history of People of Color, referring to folks who were enslaved (rather than using the noun: slave) separates a person’s identity from what was forcefully placed upon them.
Equality: Each individual or group of people is given the same access, treatment, opportunity, and advancement, regardless of social barriers or historical systems.
Equity: The fair treatment, access, opportunity and advancement for all people, while at the same time, striving to identify and eliminate barriers that prevent the full participation of some groups. The principle of equity acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations and that fairness regarding these unbalanced conditions is necessary to provide equal opportunities for all groups. It also recognizes that lack of equity puts certain groups in position of power and privilege.
Ethnicity: A group of people who share a common heritage and/or ancestry; ethnic groups may also share a common language and religion
Faculty Member: University employees who typically teach in classroom settings
Gender vs. Sex: Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics, norms, and relationships with which one identifies, whereas sex refers to the biological and physiological label given at birth.
Gender Fluid: Describes someone whose gender identity (not only expression) might change from day to day.
Gender Identity: Distinct from the term “sexual orientation”, refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female, neither, both, or all (inclusive to the idea that gender is nonbinary). It is personally defined, not necessarily visible to others.
Gender Non-conforming: An individual whose gender expression is different from societal expectations related to gender.
Harassment: The use of comments or actions that can be perceived as offensive, embarrassing, humiliating, demeaning and unwelcome.
Implicit Bias: Negative associations expressed automatically that people unknowingly hold and that affect our understanding, actions and decisions; also known as unconscious or hidden bias
Inclusion: State of feeling/believing/perceiving that one is included, embraced, supported, respected, and valued in a given community; an inclusive environment is one in which all individuals are respected regardless of how they identify (e.g., gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, citizenship status, disability, physical appearance, etc.).
Indigeneity: Indigenous populations are composed of the existing descendants of the peoples who inhabited the present territory of a country wholly or partially at the time when persons of a different culture or ethnic origin arrived there from other parts of the world, overcame them, by conquest, settlement, colonization, or other means reduced them to a non-dominant or colonial condition; who today live more in conformity with their particular social, economic, and cultural customs and traditions than with the institutions of the country of which they now form a part.
Institutional Racism: Refers specifically to the ways in which institutional policies and practices create (or perpetuate) different outcomes and opportunities for different groups based on racial discrimination.
Intersectionality: A social construct that recognizes the fluid and simultaneous diversity of identities that a person can hold such as gender, race, class, religion, professional status, marital status, socioeconomic status, etc.
“Isms”: A way of describing any attitude, action, or institutional structure that oppresses a person or group because of their target group. For example, race (racism), gender (sexism), economic status (classism), age (ageism), abilities and/or disabilities (ableism), religion (e.g., anti-Semitism), sexual orientation (heterosexism), language/immigrant status (xenophobism),etc.
Latinx or Latiné: A self-identifying term used as a gender-neutral term as opposed to Latino or Latina (masculine/feminine)
LGBTQIA+: An inclusive term for those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and the (+) symbol: any and all other self-identifying terms such as pansexual and others.
Microaggression: The verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, insults, or actions, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages to target persons based solely upon discriminatory belief systems.
Marginalized/Minoritized vs. Minority: Minoritized or marginalized connotes a group of people being pushed to the margins, whereas minority indicates a subordinate group or less than. Minoritized or marginalized is preferred by many people of color
Multicultural Competency: A process of embracing diversity and learning about people from other cultural backgrounds. The key element to becoming more culturally competent is respect for the ways others live in and organize the world and an openness to learn from them.
Oppression: The systemic and pervasive nature of social inequality woven throughout social institutions as well as embedded within individual consciousness. Oppression fuses institutional and systemic discrimination, personal bias, bigotry, and social prejudice in a complex web of relationships and structures.
Nonbinary: At its core, nonbinary is used to describe someone whose gender identity isn’t exclusively man or woman. It is important to have a conversation with someone to understand what nonbinary means to them. Some people who are nonbinary experience their gender as both man and woman, others experience it as neither.
Non-Native English Speakers: People for whom English is not the first language they learned as a child
Patriarchy: Actions and beliefs that prioritizes masculinity. Patriarchy is practiced systemically in the ways and methods through which power is distributed in society (jobs and positiosn of power given to men in government, policy, criminal justice, etc.) while also influencing how we interact with one another
People of Color (PoC): A collective term for men and women of Asian, Africa, Latinx(e), and Indigenous/Native American backgrounds, as opposed to the collective “White”.
Power: Individuals or groups who have greater access and control over resources, wealth, citizenship, education, and other social mechanisms. The ability to influence others and impose one’s beliefs.
Prejudice: A preconceived judgement or preference, especially one that interferes with impartial judgement and can be rooted in stereotypes, that denies the right of individual members of certain groups to be recognized or valued.
Privilege: Refers to an exclusive right and access to material and immaterial resources based on social status, heritage, sex, religious background, sexual orientation, physical appearance, and other categories within the dominant social groups.
Queer: An umbrella term that can refer to anyone who transgresses society’s view of gender or sexuality. The definitional indeterminacy of the word Queer, its elasticity, is one of its characteristics: “A zone of possibilities”.
Race: A social construct that divides people into distinct groups based on characteristics such as physical appearance (particularly skin color), ancestral heritage, cultural affiliation, cultural history, ethnic classification, and the social, economic, and political needs of a society at a given period of time
Racial Identity: A socially constructed classification based on generalized physical features such as skin color, hair type, shape of eyes, physique, etc.
Racial/Ethnic Profiling: The use of an individual's race/ethnicity (or the individual's assumed race/ethnicity) as justification for an arrest, a traffic stop, etc.
Racial Tension: Term used to describe the perception of a strained relationship between people of different racial backgrounds
Resident Authority: Term used to describe someone who has been put in a position to speak for an entire demographic. Making someone the "resident authority" or spokesperson incorrectly assumes that individuals of the same background all think and act alike.
Restorative Justice: A theory of justice that emphasizes repairing the harm caused by crime and conflict. It places decisions in the hands of those who have been most affected by a wrongdoing, and gives equal concern to the victim, the offender, and the surrounding community. It is meant to repair harm, heal broken relationships, and address the underlying reasons for the offense. Restorative Justice emphasizes individual and collective accountability.
Safe Space/Brave Space: Safe space refers to an environment in which everyone feels comfortable expressing themselves and participating fully, without fear of attack, ridicule or denial of experience. Brave space.
Sexual Orientation: Term which describes one's emotional, physical and sexual attraction to another person; this is inclusive of, but not limited to, those who define themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, pansexual, or asexual. *Gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same*
Social Justice: Constitutes a form of activism, based on principles of equity and inclusion, that encompasses a vision of society in which the distribution of resources is equitable, and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure. Social justice involves social actors who have a sense of their own agency as well as a sense of social responsibility toward and with others.
Socioeconomic Status: Refers to one's status or sociological classification based on income level, wealth, occupation, and educational background
Staff Member: University employees who typically work with students outside of classroom settings; however, some staff may not work with any students
Stereotype: A form of generalization rooted in blanket beliefs and false assumptions, a product of processes of categorization that can result in a prejudiced attitude, critical judgement, and intentional or unintentional discrimination. Stereotypes are typically negative, based on little information and does not recognize individualism or personal agency. Stereotypes that may seem positive on the surface may perpetuate continued prejudice and/or discrimination and may be a form of microaggression.
Structural Inequality: Systemic disadvantage(s) of one social group compared to other groups, rooted and perpetuated through discriminatory practices (conscious or unconscious) that are reinforced through institutions, ideologies, representations, policies/laws and practices. When this kind of inequality is related to racial/ethnic discrimination, it is referred to as systemic or structural racism.
System of Oppression: Conscious and unconscious, non-random and organized harassment, discrimination, exploitation, prejudice, and other forms of unequal treatment that impact different groups. Sometimes is used to refer to systemic racism.
Students: University students who are enrolled in an undergraduate, graduate, or professional degree seeking program. While some students may work at the University, their primary engagement with the university in learning in classroom settings
Tokenism: Performative presence without meaningful participation. For example, a superficial invitation for the participation of members of a certain socially oppressed group, who are expected to speak for the whole group without giving this person a real opportunity to speak for themselves.
Toxic Masculinity: Refers to traditional, cultural masculine norms that can be harmful to men and all genders, as well as society as a whole. This concept does not condemn men or male attributes, but rather emphasizes the harmful effects of conformity to a certain idea.
Transgender: Term used to describe people whose gender identity differs from the social expectations for the physical sex they were born with
White Fragility: A state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable (for white people), triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate and perpetuate white racial equilibrium.
White Supremacy: A power system structured and maintained by persons who classify themselves as White, whether consciously or subconsciously determined; and who feel superior to those of other racial/ethnic identities.
Some terms contained in this glossary have been reproduced from the following resources:
- Movement for Black Lives. Glossary. Movement for Black Lives.
- Race Forward pdf. Key terms and concepts. The Center for Racial Justice Innovation.
- Ross, R. (1982). Racism and Colonialism.
- Delgado, J. R. (2001). Critical Race Theory: An Introduction.
- Anti-Violence Project. Glossary. University of Victoria.
- Yew, L. (2002). The Culture of Diasporas in the Postcolonial Web. University of Scholars Programme; National University of Singapore.
- UN Working Group for Indigenous Peoples & WGIP (1972 and amended in 1983). Glossary.
- Shlasko, D. (2017). Trans allyship workbook: Building skills to support Trans people in our lives.
- DiAngelo, R. (2011). White fragility. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 3(3), 54-70.
- Alberta Civil Liberties Research Center. (2021). CARED Glossary. Calgary Anti-Racism Education.
- Colors of Resistance. Definitions for the Revolution.
- Cram, R. H. (2002). Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook.
- Equity and Inclusion. Glossary. UC Davis.
- Potapchuk, M., Leiderman, S., et al. (2009). Glossary. Center for Assessment/Policy Development
- Center for Diversity & Inclusion. Glossary of Bias Terms. Washington University in St. Louis.
- Ontario Human Rights Commission. Glossary of human rights terms.