Ableism: systems, rules, and laws that discriminate, oppress, or treat people differently based on their physical (body), mental (brain), or emotional (feeling) abilities.

Aboriginal: inhabiting or existing in a land from the earliest times or from before the arrival of colonists.

African: relating to Africa or people of African descent.

African-American: an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the black racial groups of Africa. Used to describe ethnicity while Black often describes race. (For example, Black people who live in America but are from other parts of the world other than Africa may not identify as African-American. However, those factions of people may still consider ‘Black’ to be their identity.)

Agent or Privileged identities: social groups that are positively valued considered superior, independent, or “normal” and have access to resources and power.

Ally: a person who willfully supports and cooperates with a movement or purpose.

Anti-Racist: a person who opposes racism and promotes racial understanding and valuing of all peoples.

Asian: a native or inhabitant of Asia, or a person of Asian descent.

Assimilation: the process of adapting or adjusting to the culture or behaviors of a dominant or majority group or nation, this may occur by choice, but historically it has been forced.

Bias: Favoring or showing prejudice towards certain people or ideas.

Bisexual: Individuals who experience sexual, romantic, and/or emotional attractions to people of more than one gender.

BIPOC: Black, Indigenous and People of Color

Black: of or relating to any of various population groups having dark pigmentation of the skin or ancestry originating in Africa.

ChicanX: a Mexican American (can be used in place of the masculine, feminine and gender binary form).

Civil Rights: the rights established and ensured by a state government regarding political and social equality.

Classism: The institutional, cultural, and individual set of beliefs and discrimination that assigns differential value to people according to their socio-economic class; and an economic system which creates excessive inequality and causes basic human needs to go unmet.

Code-Switching: the conscious or unconscious act of ‘switching’ between two languages, dialects, or intonations depending on the specific situation of who one is speaking to, what is being discussed, and the relationship and power and/or community dynamics between those involved.

Collusion: Ways that members of agent and target groups think and act, often unconsciously, that support oppressive systems and maintains the status quo.

Color-Blindness: a term referring to the disregard of racial characteristics. Proponents of color-blind practices believe that treating people equally inherently leads to a more equal society and/or that racism and race privilege no longer exercise the power they once did, while opponents of color-blind practices believe that color-blindness allows those in power to disregard or ignore the history of oppression and how it is experienced today.

Cultural Appropriation: inappropriately and/or incorrectly using or taking advantage of, or claiming ownership and rights to use another culture's capital and patrimony; such as fashion, trends, iconography, traditional art, ceremonies, etc.

Culture: specific customs, beliefs, arts, and other identifying characteristics of a particular people, nation, group.

Cultural Competence: actively learning how to gain knowledge, engage, and understand people across cultures in order to effectively, empathetically, safely work and engage with people of different cultural identities and backgrounds.

Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: is a student-centered approach to teaching in which the students’ unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student’s cultural place in the world.

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: is a philosophical outlook towards one’s approach to teaching that informs the what, the how, and the why, and focuses on the academic and personal success of students as individuals and as a collective.

Disability: a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities.

Respectful Disability Language-

Blind/Visually Impaired: Person who is blind/visually impaired

Deaf or Hard-of-hearing: Person who is deaf or hard of hearing

Speech/Communication: Person with a speech /communication disability

Learning Disability: Cognitive disability, Person with a learning or cognitive disability

Mental Health Disability: Person with a psychiatric disability, Person with a mental health disability

Mobility/Physical Disability: Wheelchair user, Physically disabled, Person with a mobility or physical disability

Emotional Disability: Emotionally disabled, Person with an emotional disability

Cognitive Disability: Cognitively/Developmentally disabled, Person with a cognitive/developmental disability

Short Stature/Little Person: Someone of short stature, Little Person

Health Conditions Victim: Survivor, Someone “living with” a specific disability (i.e. “someone living with cancer or AIDS”)

Discrimination: to make differences in treatment or prejudice against a group of people or favoring a group of people, including the unequal allocation of goods, resources, and services, and the limitation of access to full participation in a society based on individual membership in a particular social group; reinforced by law, policy, and cultural norms that allow for differential treatment on the basis of identity.

Diversity: showcasing a plethora or variety of different things; state of being diverse.

Ethnicity: a group of people who identify with one another with similarities such as history, culture, language, ancestry, etc.

Ethnocentrism: consciously or unconsciously privileging one’s own ethnic group over others; assuming or judging other groups according to one’s own group values.

Equity: fairness; freedom of bias or favoritism

Eurocentric: Eurocentrism is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-western civilizations

False Narrative: a story that you perceive as being true but has little basis in reality, this perception can be due to insufficient or inaccurate information or to insufficient or inaccurate assessment.

Gay: Men who experience sexual, romantic, and/or emotional attractions to other men.

Hybridity: two separate races, plants, and cultures that are crossed.

Inclusion: the state of including all within a group or structure.

Indigenous: ethnic groups who are the original or earliest known inhabitants of an area, in contrast to groups that have settled, occupied or colonized the area more recently.

Intersectionality: combining both social and political identifiers to create new types of discrimination and privilege. The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage; a theoretical approach based on such a premise.

LatinX: a person of Latin origin or descent.

Lesbian: Women who experience sexual, romantic, and/or emotional attractions to other women.

LGBTQ+: stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and “plus,” which represents other sexual identities including pansexual, asexual and omnisexual.

Marginalize: the systematic disempowerment of a person or community by denying access to necessary resources, enforcing prejudice through society’s institutions, and/or not allowing for that individual or community’s voice, history, and perspective to be heard.

Micro aggression: small moment of words or actions that go after a group

Middle Eastern: a person of Middle Eastern origin or descent.

Multiethnic: of two or more ethnicities.

Multiracial: of two or more races.

Nationality: the status of belonging to a particular nation.

NBIPOC: Non-Black Indigenous People of Color

North African: origins based in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, Western Sahara belonging to a particular nation.

Oppression: When an agent group, whether knowingly or unknowingly, abuses a target group. This pervasive system is rooted historically and maintained through individual and institutional/systematic discrimination, personal bias, bigotry, and social prejudice, resulting in a condition of privilege for the agent group at the expense of the target group.

Pacific Islanders or Pasifika: are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. It is a geographic and ethnic/racial term to describe the inhabitants and diaspora of any of the three major sub-regions of Oceania. It is not used to describe non-indigenous inhabitants of the Pacific islands.

Person of color: a person who is not white or of European parentage.

Privilege: unearned access to resources, a special right, special immunity, or advantage available to only a certain group or person because of their social group membership. Privilege is often invisible to those who have it.

Queer: An umbrella term to refer to all LGBTQ+ people. It is also a non-binary term used by individuals who see their sexual orientation and/or gender identity as fluid.

Racism: systems, rules, and laws that are unequal for all racial groups, actions and behaviors, and systems meant to exclude, demean, or oppress someone base on their assumed racial heritage, racism has been used to effect domination over certain groups.

Race: a socially constructed term with no scientific basis used to identify a group of people who share physical characteristics and other cultural elements such as language, history, etc.,

Social Justice: the concept that all people should have access to wealth, health, well-being, justice, and opportunity.

Social Power: Access to resources that enhance one’s chances of getting what one needs in order to lead a comfortable, productive, and safe life.

Socialization: The process by which a human beginning at infancy acquires the habits, beliefs, and accumulated knowledge of society through education and training (by family, friends, culture, and systems/institutions).

South Asian: a person of origin or descent from Southern Asia.

South East Asian: a person of origin or descent from the south eastern part of Asia.

Stereotype: a category or group that we put people into (thinking a certain type of person or thing acts/thinks/looks a certain way), considered to be generalized, negative, misrepresentative, prejudiced or demeaning.

Target or Oppressed Identities: Social groups that are negatively valued, considered to be inferior, abnormal, or dependent and given limited access to resources and social power.

Trans, trans*, or transgender: Umbrella terms for individuals whose gender identity and/or expression is different from the gender assigned to them at birth.

White Guilt: the individual or collective guilt felt by some white people for the historical and current oppressions experienced by people of color; though white guilt has been described as being a detrimental consequence of racism, experiences associated with white guilt are not comparable to the experiences of systemic oppression faced by marginalized communities white privilege: the right or advantage provided to people who are considered white; an exemption of social, political, and/or economic burdens placed on non-white people; benefitting from societal structuring that prioritizes

White people and Whiteness: like race, whiteness is a social construct rather than an essential characteristic or biological fact; is used as cultural property, and can be seen to provide material and/or social privilege to those who are considered white, pass as white, or are given honorary white status

Xenophobia: the unreasonable fear or dislike of things, cultures, forms of expression, or people that are different from oneself and one’s own experiences of the everyday; fear of that which seems foreign or strange.

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