Ontario Universities & EDI: A Textual Analysis Of Annual EDI Reports

Ontario Universities & EDI: A Textual Analysis Of Annual EDI Reports

Jordan Luu


Biography

I am a communication professional focused on communication, administration, and event work. I have 2 years of experience in supporting learning and teaching deliverables, and 4 years of experience in student engagement leadership. My enthusiasm for the community around higher education grows, as I continue to contribute to impactful projects in my field. How is my research relevant to my work experience? I have taken the opportunity for my capstone project to step a bit outside of my professional portfolio. I have worked with both student and staff/faculty groups over the course of my studies. Having had exposure to a diverse range of communities, I wanted to use my research as an opportunity to analyze the languages and themes our universities use when speaking about EDI.

Research Summary

My research focuses on analyzing language that is used in equity, diversity, and inclusion reports created by universities across Ontario. EDI is a growing topic in higher education, and has become an essential practice to create fair and diverse communities and opportunities for all individuals, especially equity-seeking groups. My research caters to both students and faculty/staff, and offers a different angle at looking at EDI engagement in higher education. It analyzes 28 annual EDI and EDI-equivalent reports from across 13 different Ontario universities, in 2 distinct ways. Quantitatively via the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software to determine numerical trends in word usage, and qualitatively by creating a sample codebook sorted thematically. The quantitative data being used largely to ground the codebook themes I’ve created, to map out my findings. The end goal of my research to create a decision matrix and a grading system that identifies the most and least discussed/practiced themes in EDI across Ontario universities, shedding light on lesser discussed themes in higher education that could benefit from more engagement.

Tags

Diversity, Equity, Education

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