Liberatory Design Thinking for Equity-Centered Instructional Design: A Systems Thinking Analysis

Abstract

As per the National Equity Project, any system that produces inequities, injustices, and inequalities is often a product of design. Research has shown that systemic inequity often results from the design process and can rupture the power balance producing inequitable relationships in the social justice arena (NEP, n.d.). Systems design in K-12, higher education, and other organizational or workplace contexts are crucial to empower every learner with equitable opportunities or create more inequities. The historical data shows that systemic inequities were intentionally designed with oppression as the goal; hence the importance of equity-centered systems design justice becomes indispensable for producing equitable learning experiences for everyone (NEP, n.d.). Equity-centered systems design is pivotal in dismantling systems of oppression and empowering people of color, people with disability, the LGBTQ+ community, the indigenous, and other marginalized communities. Using the liberatory design thinking framework, instructional designers can recognize individual, institutional, and structural inequities and create opportunities to produce equitable learning experiences for learners. An equity-centered liberatory design thinking approach can support instructional designers in identifying and addressing the problems of inequities in an existing system. By considering the ethos and strategies necessary to center equity by design, instructional designers can provide a platform and opportunity for all stakeholders to practice converging and divergent thinking. Furthermore, the needs and beliefs about learning design as they ideate solutions grounded in the experiences of people from diverse backgrounds, especially people with disability, the LGBTQ+ community, the indigenous, and other marginalized communities. (Khalil, 2020).