2.1 Diversity, equity, and inclusion
Technical communication impacts the world we live in: it allows readers to access information and, many times, to access more tangible things like technology, housing, legal protection, or medical care. Because technical communicators often play the role of explainers by making such crucial things accessible and available to their audience, they must consider how diversity, equity, and inclusion are built into the work that they do. They must also recognize the ways that their work has not aligned with goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and build coalitions and communities that center these goals.
Social justice has increasingly become a central concern to researchers and practitioners of technical communication. Technical communicators are working to consider the role they play in either perpetuating or dismantling problematic systems that suppress certain individuals or groups. The role of technical communicators, one could argue, is to make things accessible. So, technical communicators must recognize when things are inaccessible and come up with a plan to dismantle barriers that audiences face so that they can access the information they need.
Key Takeaway: Making Information Accessible
Technical communicators work to explain things to a target audience. One way that technical communicators can increase accessibility is to reflect on who is currently centered or included when they write for an audience. Technical communicators can do this work by asking questions and recognizing that working towards accessibility is an ongoing task. Some important questions for technical communicators to ask of themselves and their team include:
- Who is part of this audience, based on a rhetorical analysis of the text?
- Who might be excluded, intentionally or unintentionally?
- Is any important information being withheld, either intentionally or unintentionally?
As you read the rest of this section, continue to reflect on the following questions:
- What does it mean to center diversity, equity, and inclusion when you are reviewing a technical manual?
- What does it mean to focus on social justice when you are designing the content for an organization’s website?
There are many ways to make diversity, equity, and inclusion central in your work as a technical communicator. In this text, we discuss such specific considerations as using plain language, collaborating with your user through usability testing and centering your audience, and representing data in an ethical way. Throughout each discussion, and each tactic for equity and inclusion, a guiding principle is to 1) consider the specific rhetorical situation and 2) listen to your audience. Avoid centering yourself–your audience, their needs, and their perspective, should guide your choices. Finally, consider who your audience is, and be wary of whom you may be leaving out. Whose voice is not currently being heard? Who does not have access?
Many of the considerations from Section 1 are important when approaching technical communication through a social justice lens. In this text, taking a rhetorical approach to technical communication and considering technical communication’s place in matters of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice, go together hand-in-hand. As we discuss in this section, and throughout the text, one way to focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion happens through a focus on (and collaboration with) your specific audience. In order to have a good understanding of your audience–their needs, expectations, context–and how that audience intersects with your document–its purpose, goals, and context–it is essential to understand the rhetorical situation.
Before you continue, do a bit of reflection. How do you define the terms diversity, equity, and inclusion? What do these terms mean, and how might they show up in technical communication? What is the relationship between diversity, equity, and inclusion and the important work of considering audience in technical communication?
In their text, Walton, Moore, and Jones (2019) stress the importance of building coalitions towards social justice in the field of technical communication. They also emphasize the importance of recognizing that social justice is integral to the field: that technical communication professionals and scholars must continually work to recognize the ways in which their work has created barriers to access or worked against, rather than with, marginalized communities. Of course, knowing that technical communication has contributed to inequality is an important part of understanding how, as a technical communicator, your work can contribute instead to social justice. Throughout this text we try to frame writing not only as rhetorical, but as constantly engaged in matters of access and inclusion. The idea of building coalitions highlights technical communication as a collaborative process: writings work together with other writers and with their audience in order to continually do better and increase access and inclusion.
The Department of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota says this about diversity, equity, and inclusion on their website:
The Department of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities recognizes that equity, diversity, and inclusion must be addressed on individual and group levels. We accept the Office for Equity and Diversity’s (OED) definitions of bias and prejudice as “preconceived judgment or opinion; an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just ground or before sufficient knowledge.”
The department is also aware that relations of privilege and oppression are institutionalized on a systemic level but strives to address the principle of social justice for all. The department recognizes that society is often unjust but that the department (and its individual members) can play important roles in mitigating these injustices and become a space that better embodies equity, diversity, and inclusion. Thus, the department encourages equity, diversity, and inclusion in representation as well as the development of personal awareness, and the department actively seeks to engage in creating socially just learning and workplace environments and opportunities.
[Read the complete Department of Writing Studies equity and diversity statement.]
When considering how technical communicators can work towards diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is important to understand what these terms mean. Although defining terms is complicated (see Section 4.2 to read about the common genre of technical definitions and descriptions), below are some contextual definitions of these key terms. The definitions are contextual because they depend upon a specific context. You can find other definitions and construct your own as you develop your own understanding of technical communication and social justice, and as you continue to research and read about this intersection.
Diversity
Diversity might be defined as the wide range of lived experiences, of cultures, of abilities, of beliefs, or of behavior; diversity refers to the various ways that individuals and groups move through the world. Linguistic diversity refers to the differences in how groups and individuals use language. Diversity, at its core, means difference, and a goal related to diversity would be to have differences represented in a meaningful way. Another goal would be to value and honor difference and to recognize that audience members are inherently different in how they communicate and approach texts. Technical communicators should seek out diversity in their work. Diversity might also include a range of human differences like age, race, culture, language, occupation, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, education background, etc.
Equity
Equity is a term that is related to equality. However, while equality simply means something like making sure each person is given the same opportunities, equity recognizes that individual differences mean that folks have different needs that must be met in order for them to participate. Equity considers differences and accommodates differences with the goal of equal participation or access.
Inclusion
Inclusion might be a more familiar or common term, and for the purposes of our text inclusion means that folks feel invited and able to participate. Just like equity, inclusion considers difference and works towards access. Consider what it means to be included in a space, or included in some special knowledge. Inclusion means more than presence; inclusion signals something like participation or agency. Inclusion might mean access to resources, to knowledge, to opportunities, or to physical or virtual spaces. When we consider inclusion, we need to consider how marginalized people are or are not invited to participate.
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea that everyone deserves equal and equitable access to things like wealth, political power, information, and opportunities. Social justice takes on the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and puts something into practice in order to work towards achieving these goals.
Take a moment now to do some research and reflection of your own. Given these definitions, how would you define each term specifically in relation to the field of technical communication? When a technical communicator or a team of writers considers diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice in their work, how might they define these terms? You can be as specific as you’d like and use some illustrative examples!
Key Takeaway: Defining Terms
This text frequently pauses from delivering information in order to ask you to reflect on a specific question. Performing what’s known as reflection or a metacognitive exercise (when you think about how you think about things, your you reflect on how you know what you know), helps learners to retain information in such a way that lets them more easily transfer that information to new situations. For this reason, even as this text defines terms, it asks you to reflect on those definitions and to create your own understandings.
As you are presented with these contextual definitions of diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice, how can you map these terms onto your own understanding or experiences? How can you define these terms for yourself, and how can you relate these terms to what you’ve already learned about technical communication? Technical communicators work to explain things; how would you explain diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice to someone in your life who may not be familiar with these terms?
As you continue to reflect on these ideas, keep in mind that diversity, equity, and inclusion require ongoing work and are dependent on context. Just as each new writing situation means you need to analyze a new rhetorical situation, each new writing situation means a new set of concerns related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Remember, too, that an important focus of this text is the communication process, not only the final product or specific text you are working to create. Part of that process includes revision, rewriting, editing, or remixing. When we understand diversity, equity, and inclusion as ongoing concerns, it becomes even more important to think of technical communication as something that is always in process, or to frame a text as never completely finished. So much of the work of technical and professional writers is actually revising or editing an existing text to incorporate new information or to address specific needs of a new audience. When you learn something about your audience, and what they need in order to access information, or what they need in order to gain equitable participation, or what it may mean to consider diversity and inclusion for your text, purpose, and audience, you will need to revise and edit to accommodate those needs. In other words: seek to get some feedback and gather new information and then revise, revise, revise!
It is so important, because technical communicators are concerned with diversity, equity, and inclusion, that our work towards social justice involves listening to feedback and seeking out input from diverse audiences. Be sure that you do not center yourself, as the writer; just because something appeals to you or “makes sense” based on your experiences and context, that does not mean it will appeal to or make sense to your audience. The work of de-centering yourself is also ongoing, and takes practice. Of course you will always write from your own point of view, but recognize your own biases and perspectives. Understand that it takes work to develop a text for someone with different perspectives (this is another reason that collaboration can be so useful in technical communication: you get to draw from the perspectives of a team!).
Activity and Reflection: Centering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
For this activity, find a text that you would consider technical communication. A great example might be a set of instructions, a lease or “terms and conditions” contract, or a technical description. Working alone or in a group, answer the following reflective questions:
- Who is the target audience for this document? Be as descriptive as possible. What specific features let you know something about the target audience?
- Where does content in the piece seem to exclude some readers by using unfamiliar terms or by making inaccurate assumptions about access to resources?
- How does this document engage (or ignore) diversity, equity, and inclusion?
- How would you revise this document to better consider diversity, equity, and inclusion? What would you change, and how might those changes make the document more accessible for the audience that is left out?
