Syllabus

Overview and Goals

The Biden administration’s Executive Order 13895 calls on the Federal Government to advance equity in order “to provide everyone with the opportunity to reach their full potential.” One admission embedded in this charge is that the policies that order our common life have not historically centered equity.

What would it mean to prioritize equity in policy? What are the possibilities for more universal inclusion, belonging, and flourishing? How might we evaluate the way current policies or proposals support or hide inequitable processes, outcomes, or treatment? And how can equity be operationalized across stages of the policy process – from problem identification and formulation, to policy intervention and analysis, and policy design and implementation? These are the questions that will shape our work.

Over the course of the semester, we will develop a roadmap for equitable policy choice and evaluation. There is no ready guidebook for how to understand what an equitable policy process or policy choices or policy designs look like. We will work together over the course of the semester to imagine where an equity lens could be usefully incorporated in policy.

A few of our learning goals:

• Be able to recognize and explain different concepts of equity in the policy domain;
• Practice applying various tools and measures of equity to governmental action;
• Evaluate policy alternatives with respect to equity and additional principles;
• Develop deeper understanding of a selected policy area.

Evaluation of Our Work

Contributions to Material/Class (35%)

This set of assignments is directed at supporting both individual and collective understanding of the reading in a way that prepares everyone to contribute to the team projects. Due by Tuesday, 12/13.

Reading annotations (16%)

To facilitate understanding and discussion we’ll all contribute to collaborative annotation and commenting on the reading using Perusall by noon Tuesday. I will review these ahead of class to help organize our discussion.

We have reading assigned on eleven out of fourteen weeks (excluding week 1). Contributing annotations to readings for at least eight weeks is necessary for full credit. Make at least four full contributions for a given week’s reading. Reading annotations should be submitted by 2pm on the day of class.

A full contribution will go beyond agreeing with a point or asking a question. It will engage a point, connect it to other ideas we might learn from, amend it to suggest a more limited or wider scope, note conditions under which it is more or less relevant, ponder how it might inform your project or other work of which you are aware, ask a question and provide an initial answer. If others have already commented on a passage and you want to address and elaborate on the initial comment (beyond basic agreement), you should. Think about the kinds of things you might raise in a discussion and bring them up in the annotations.

In-Class Practice (14%)

In about half of the weeks, we’ll spend some part of class putting ideas into practice or providing feedback to one another on the team-based projects.

Course Material Recommendation (5%)

By the end of the semester, suggest one new resource for this course – it might be an academic article, a white paper or report from a policy organization, a podcast or multimedia piece, a science fiction or other literary selection, or something else. Submit this suggestion to me along with a paragraph outlining why you find it relevant or useful.

Project Work (65%)

We will test and expand our understanding through a series of team-based projects. Grades will depend on your learning and contribution to this collective effort, which will be assessed by a combination of individual work and team work. All of the final submissions from our project work will be shared on the course website!

The Meaning of Equity (25%)

In the first project, we’ll explore what “equity” means to the federal government by coding the content of the Equity Action Plans submitted by federal agencies. Based on our reading and collective understanding, we’ll create an initial coding scheme. Individuals will use the scheme to code the Equity Action Plan of two agencies and then teams will work together to compare document coding and understanding for a subset of agencies. Teams will generate a short write up (~3 single-spaced pages) presenting the results for their agencies and providing a narrative interpretation of the definitions of equity in these contexts and how they might connect to the ways the relevant agencies define and represent problems and construct the agencies’ clients and stakeholders.

• Tuesday, 8/30: Coding scheme developed in class, teams defined
• (5%) Tuesday, 9/6: Individuals submit initial completed coding for two documents (these will overlap within a team so that each document is reviewed and coded by two members)
• (20%) Friday, 9/23: Teams submit completed coding for their subset of documents and narrative write up (~3 single-spaced pages)

Policy Assessment Brief (25%)

The policy assessment assignment will in the form of a 4-6 page single-spaced written brief. You’ll (a) identify the problem, people, and place of your policy focus, including a description of the problem, who is experiencing the problem, and the policy status quo in your selected context (what are the central prior policies that shape the current outcomes; how were these outcomes created). Following a description of the problem, people, and policy context, you’ll (b) provide an equity assessment of the current state; this should include a description of how the policy or challenges vary across populations, an evaluation of the problem representations or the social constructions in current policy (the reading from the weeks of 9/6 and 9/13) and how this might contribute to or hinder equity, and addressing some selected dimensions or questions around equity assessment, measurement, and evaluation (the reading from the weeks of 9/20, 9/27). It will end by (c) pointing to a policy proposal you recommend for further investigation.

• (5%) Friday, 10/7: Individuals submit individual pre-brief sketch of the policy landscape for your team’s chosen policy focus, including a brief description of the problem, who is experiencing the problem, and a prior policy that is shaping these outcomes (~ 1-2 single-spaced pages). You’ll share your individual pre-brief sketches with one another to learn from one another and further negotiate a focus and jumpstart the policy brief.
• Tuesday, 10/18: In-class peer feedback
• Tuesday, 11/1: In-class presentation
• (20%) Friday, 11/11: Teams submit completed brief (~ 4-6 single-spaced pages)

Policy Communication (15%)

Present an abbreviated version of the key information in your policy assessment brief in a creative way, something aimed at informing a broader public or impacted populations. This could take any form – a short (less than 5 minutes) podcast, a cartoon explainer, a brief video, a tweet thread with gifs, an infographic, something else (e.g., material appropriate for other social media forms). Any format you think could be useful for public communication and education! You may choose to emphasize problems or solutions; it could be advocating for something or purely informational. The key is to make it legible to a wider audience to promote public engagement in the policy arena.

• (5%) Tuesday, 11/22: Individuals submit an example of a useful policy communication piece with a paragraph or two explaining what elements you think make this especially impactful.
• Tuesday, 12/6: In-class draft presentation
• (10%) Tuesday, 12/13: Teams submit final piece

REVISED

• (5%) Tuesday, 12/6: Individuals submit an example of a useful policy communication piece with a paragraph or two explaining what elements you think make this especially impactful.

Centering People in Places: Policy Briefs

One starting point for us will be the assumption that equitable policy centers people, that policies are oriented toward solving the problems people are facing or in creating conditions for people to thrive. Thus, our applied work will begin by centering people within a selected policy domain. That is, a focus on housing affordability might center the experiences of people experiencing housing instability or homelessness (or new or future residents or people at risk of displacement or …); we will work to avoid abstractions (housing policy) in favor of identified challenges faced by identified people. The selected population need not be the only group considered in the policy briefs – ideally, policy alternatives will improve conditions for many – but will serve as an anchoring point.

Once a population is centered, you’ll select a jurisdictional locus to make the the people and policy context more tangible. This might be local, state, or national but should be thoughtfully connected to the policy challenge. The policy recommendations might be generalizable across cities, states, or nations, but to keep things concrete, your assessment and recommendation briefs will use a selected place to research and describe.