Equality Vs. Equity

Equality Verus Equity

By: Zack, Jim, Josh and Tuntun

Let's start off with saying equality means giving everyone something (e.g., giving everyone a shoe.) Equity is giving everyone something that they need (e.g., giving everyone a shoe that fits.) The first one (equality) was equal, but the second one (equity) was fair.

Equality and equity are two different words. They have two different meanings. Equality is when everyone gets equal things but the gap between the two types of people still stays the same. There is no point of equality if the gap still stays the same, life will still be the same, everything is still the same. The only difference is that the group all moves up to a higher level. On the other hand equity is quite different. The people with less privileges get more privileges than they had before. As a result, there is no gap between the different types of people. We are aiming for equity in the world as of now (2018). What are the ways that you could make equity possible your school, neighbourhood or even the world?

Examples of Comparing Equality and Equity

Money

There is a rich person who has a lot of money. All of a sudden, there is equity in the town, then all of the money gets split into parts. Now the poor people have enough money and the rich people also have enough money.

Entertainment

There was a park where the younger kids got to go on the playground and the older kids also have a bigger playground. They probably don’t want to play on a playground and they may have wanted a basketball court or something else. This is an example of equality. Equity is when there would be a basketball court for the older kids and a playground for the younger kids.

School

There is a candy shop (tuck shop) and a girl and a boy come up. They both have 3 dollars but your only allowed to spend 1 dollar. The boy comes up and spends all of his 3 dollars. Next the girl comes up and asks to spend all of her money. The people running the tuck shop say that your only allowed to spend 1 dollar. She says back, “ but the boy spend all of his 3 dollars.” The people running the tuck shop said “you’re a girl and he was a boy and we like boys more than girls.”

Equity is if a school is putting up a puppet show. All of the grades come and they split all of the grades into short and tall. They put the tall people in the back and the short people in the front so everyone could see.

More About What Equity Is

We think equality is okay but not so good. That is because everyone is equal but the rich people have more, because of that purpose. That is because if a rich person is equal to a poor person the the rich person has more. It is good because everyone is somewhat still equal. We want everyone to experience equity.

In other words equality is giving anyone and opportunity e.g every student at a school is given the same math test to hand out even though one kid can’t read english.

Equity is giving things to people based on their needs e.g the person with the language barrier has a different test or they could do it with a teacher/volunteer.

Some people think that equality is fair but they are wrong. That is because even though you are given equal things you are not given what you need. Furthermore, usually you are given the same thing even if you don’t need it. People think equality is a more fair way because everyone gets the same thing, however many people need different things.

In equity you are not always given the same amount of things but things that you need. For example there is a person that has a hard time breathing and a person with a brain disease that makes them not think the same. The person that has a hard time breathing can get a puffer, a air mask breathing tubes and a fresh air container because that is what they needs. The person that doesn’t think the same gets a person that goes everywhere with them to help out. That is all they need. That is fair, although if they both were to get a fresh air container that wouldn’t be fair even though it is an equal amount of things.

Say you have ten bottles of insulin (a thing people take when they have diabetes) and ten people, equality says you should give each person one. Equity says you should give the insulin evenly throughout the people who need it (just the diabetics).

Equality would only ever be fair if everybody needed the same things, because like we said in equality everyone is given the same thing. In equity they get what they need. So if everyone needed the same thing equality (giving everyone the same thing) would be perfect. Although it’s not because everyone doesn’t need the same thing.

Equality refers to “sameness”

Equity refers to “fairness”