In the attached materials, you’ll be asked to read and think about issues of identity, privilege, oppression, and social justice. This may be new to you, or it may be a huge piece of your daily, lived experience. Our readings will focus primarily on race and gender, but should also give you a lens through which to understand a wide breadth of social justice and identity issues. Our goal here is to build some of the linguistic and conceptual skills that will start the work of having safe, productive, community-affirming conversations about systemic inequities.
Refer to The Glossary if you encounter unfamiliar terms.
- Build a framework for critical, informed conversations around diversity and inclusion.
- Develop a shared social justice vocabulary.
- Develop an increased understanding of the impact of privilege and oppression on our communities, our careers, and our identities.
- Move beyond thinking about individual, overt prejudice to thinking about larger systems of institutional oppression and privilege.
Ada Developers Academy is designed to be an inclusive, positive learning environment for all students, regardless of sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, education, age, race, or religion. All women (cis and trans*) and people with non-binary gender who feel a part of women's community are encouraged to apply.
In this section, we're going to think critically about the myriad parts of our own identities. Next, we'll contexualize this work with the core concept of Intersectionality. Lastly, we'll read three articles that highlight the importance of intersectionality in effectively addressing diversity in tech.
In this section, we'll first look at the concept of privilege and how it operates both individually and systemically. Second, we'll look at institutional racism in tech and beyond.
In this section, we'll look at how the inequities we've explored can impact our communities and interpersonal interactions - and what we can do about it. We'll define "microaggresions" and "equity."