Over the last year, the Targeted Pathways Project has worked to develop OER textbooks covering Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS), Sociology, and Criminal Justice. Each of these subjects engage a range of social issues that affect communities across the country. Our goal is to ensure that the information in our textbooks is as diverse as the students and instructors who will eventually use our resources. When creating and revising these resources, it is important for us to be intentional about the language we use in our textbooks, challenging our own biases and assumptions as authors, and ensuring that historically marginalized voices are centered. This means that we don’t shy away from histories of inequality and injustice and that we actively work to cite the work of people of color. To achieve this, we need to engage with an equity lens to guide our curriculum and course design.

So what is an equity lens?

Ida B. Wells, a Black journalist, activist, and researcher, in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, said, “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” Leading with an equity lens in curriculum design means shining a light on underrepresented perspectives, centering them, and diving deeper into the histories of systemic oppression that lead to social injustices and disparities we live with today.

Wells-Barnett I. B. Bay M. & Gates H. L. (2014). The light of truth: writings of an anti-lynching crusader. Penguin Books.