Conversations can often get off track because people are using the same terms in different ways. Establishing a shared understanding and language to describe things such as tools, models, conditions, outcomes, data, and root causes of inequities can serve important functions such as inclusion, deeper understanding, and greater alignment.
Scroll down (or click the tabs on the right) to read definitions of core concepts that are used frequently within the Eastside Pathways Partnership work. The glossary is a living reference and will be regularly updated.
If you would like to contribute to the glossary, please fill and submit this form.
Elements of the glossary:
Word (part of speech) – definition(s) and working example(s)
SOURCE:
CONTEXT: Historical and/or cultural context
Council/CAN
504 Plan (n) – a plan developed to ensure that a child who has a disability identified under the law and is attending an elementary or secondary educational institution receives accommodations that will ensure their academic success and access to the learning environment.
CAN: Career Pathways
Absolution (n) – formal release from guilt, obligation, or punishment.
Council: Racial Equity
Accomplice (n) – a person who goes beyond reducing their own complicity or collusion in oppression of others, strengthening their own knowledge and awareness of oppression, and may even experience loss and/or risk alongside people who are oppressed. Combining or uniting a resource, understanding, or commodity with another for mutual benefit.
Council: Racial Equity
Accountability (n) – the fact or condition of being accountable for both past and present actions; responsibility.
In the context of equity work, accountability refers to the ways in which individuals and communities hold themselves to their goals and actions and acknowledge the values and groups to which they are responsible.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Accountability Pathway (n) – a tool that stakeholders can use to check for accountability together, have honest conversations about the state of their plans and refocus their efforts to get the results they seek.
SOURCE: Annie E. Casey Foundation Video
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Achievement Gap (n) – the disparity of academic outcomes between subgroups of students.
CONTEXT: This term focuses solely on the outcomes and not the inputs or disparate circumstances that
students and youth have to navigate prior to engaging in academics.
Council: Data
Action Commitment (n) – a statement made by one or more participants conveying their intention to accomplish a task within a specific time frame. May include tasks that are long term.
SOURCE: Annie E. Casey, Results Based Facilitation
CONTEXT: Out of respect for communities who have experienced this form of oppression and trauma, we don’t use the phrase “divide and conquer,” but rather “many hands make light work.” (see Colonialism, Microaggression)
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Adaptive Challenge – situation where there are no known solutions to the problem.
General | Council: Data
Adaptive Leadership – a framework, a model, for leading people through complex challenges for which there are no pre-determined answers.
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Ally (n) – someone who makes the commitment and effort to recognize their privilege (based on gender, class, race, sexual identity, etc.) and works in solidarity with oppressed groups in the struggle for justice. Allies understand that it is in their own interest to end all forms of oppression, even those from which they may benefit in concrete ways. (see Accomplice, Anti-racist)
SOURCE: 1. OpenSource Leadership Strategies, “The Dynamic System of Power, Privilege, and Oppression” (2008). 2. Center for Assessment and Policy Development
Council: Racial Equity
Anti-Blackness (n) – the devaluing of Black people, bodies, and culture as a racial group, while also marginalizing Black people and their issues. Anti-Blackness presents as overt racism, as well as covert structural and systemic racism, which categorically predetermines the socioeconomic status of Black people. The structure is held in place by anti-Black policies, institutions, and ideologies.
SOURCE: The Movement for Black Lives, Council for Democratizing Education
Council: Racial Equity
Anti-racism (n) – the work of actively disrupting racism by developing, implementing, and/or advocating for changes in political, economic, and social life.
SOURCE: Race Forward, “Race Reporting Guide” (2015)
Council: Racial Equity
Anti-racist (n) – someone who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing antiracist ideas. This includes the expression of ideas that racial groups are equals and do not need developing, and supporting policies that reduce racial inequity.
SOURCE: Ibram X. Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist, Random House, 2019
Council: Racial Equity
Asset Based Language (a) – focus on positive outcomes and personal strengths, rather than problems and barriers.
General | Council: Data | CAN: MESH
Assimilation (n) – the process of taking in and fully understanding information or ideas often by erasing a group or individual’s own culture. This is seen when one assumes the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group, often in service of survival, and in particular within communities of color.
Council: Racial Equity
B/ART (Boundary of Authority, Role and Task) – a group analysis tool used to develop group dynamics and iteratively to reduce abandoned tasks as they are occurring in groups. A tool to be used to support self-understanding and continued alignment.
General | CAN: Early Learning
Backbone Organization/Support (n) – a dedicated team or set of resources to orchestrate the work of the group. Manages the day-to-day operations and implementation of work, including stakeholder engagement, communications, data collection and analysis, and other responsibilities.
SOURCE: Collective Impact Forum
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Benchmark of Quality (BoQ) (n) – a framework providing a baseline of statements or measures to help individuals, groups or organizations improve the quality of their policies, procedures, and practices.
Council: Data | CAN: MESH
Bilingual (n) – a person fluent in two languages.
CAN: Early Learning
Best Start for Kids (BSK) – in 2015, King County voters approved a groundbreaking initiative, Best Start for Kids, to invest in the health and well-being of their neighbors and communities. The Best Starts for Kids levy invests an average of $65 million per year to support King County families and children, from the time that parents plan for a family, and throughout childhood and young adulthood.
CAN: Early Learning
Business Engagement (n) – interaction between employers, other workforce development and education organizations that results in measurable improvement in desired outcomes for all parties; the act of partnering with organizations to address institutional and/or structural issues.
CAN: Career Pathways
Career and Technical Education (CTE) (n) – a program that allows students to personalize their education based on their career interests and unique learning needs; often includes college credit or certification.
CAN: Career Pathways
Career Pathways (n) – a plan for high school through post-secondary degree, training, or certification completion to enter a career of choice.
CAN: Career Pathways
Caucus (affinity group) (n) – an identity-based group of people.
A caucus is an intentionally created space for those who share an identity to convene for learning, support, and connections. Caucuses based on racial identity are often comprised, respectively, of people of color, white people, people who hold multiracial identities, or people who share specific racial or ethnic identities.
SOURCE: RacialEquityTools.org, ACT / Strategies / Caucus and Affinity Groups
General | Council: Racial Equity
Causation (n) – a relationship between two factors, where one factor has been proven to cause the other factor.
Council: Data
Closest to the results / Most impacted / Most burdened by the system – those individuals who are/would be most affected by a proposed change or result.
SOURCE: Collective Impact and Community Engagement
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Co-creation/ Co-development (n) – the process of a group of people with diverse perspectives, authority and disciplines, coming together to think of, or produce a new idea, product. (see Adaptive Challenge)
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Code-switching (v) – the practice of alternating between two or more cultures, languages, etc. in a conversation, often in service of survival.
Council: Racial Equity
Collaboration (n) – the action of working with someone or a group to accomplish or produce something together.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Collaborative Action Network (CAN) (n) – partners and stakeholders convened around a specific outcome to collectively take aligned action on a common agenda; includes the development, implementation, and measurement of adaptive solutions.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Collective Impact – the commitment of a group from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a targeted social problem through alignment and differentiation of efforts.
SOURCE: Collective Impact Forum
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Collectivism (n) – the practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it; the cultural norm of identifying as a collective versus as an individual.
Council: Racial Equity
Colonization (v) – some form of invasion, dispossession and subjugation of a people. The invasion need not be military; it can begin—or continue—as geographical intrusion in the form of agricultural, urban or industrial encroachments. The result of such incursion is the dispossession of vast amounts of lands from the original inhabitants. This is often legalized after the fact. The long-term result of such massive dispossession is institutionalized inequality. The colonizer/colonized relationship is by nature an unequal one that benefits the colonizer at the expense of the colonized.
Council: Racial Equity
Colorblind (adj) – a lack of awareness of the impacts of racism or any other forms of prejudice related to racial, cultural or national origin.
Council: Racial Equity
Colorism (n) – prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark or darker skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.
Council: Racial Equity
Common Agenda – one of the principles of collective impact. A shared vision for change, including a mutual understanding of the problem and joint approach to solving it through agreed-upon actions.
General | CAN: Early Learning
Community (n) – groups of people who come together around a shared interest or focus. Note: in conversation, it seems with this word, it’s important to establish a mutual understanding to avoid misalignment or misunderstanding.
General | CAN: Early Learning
Community Engagement (v) – the act of being in relationship with people within an identified boundary; typically, people who do not traditionally have authority or influence within an organization or system.
Council: Racial Equity | CAN: Early Learning
Community Engagement Spectrum (n) – a tool for identifying the type of relationship being held with the community and the context of the work being done technical versus adaptive; includes inform, consult, involve, collaborate, empower. (see Community, Community Engagement)
SOURCE: adapted from the International Association for Public Participation and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Community Impact Manager (n) – backbone staff member charged with facilitation, project management, communications, strategy development, implementation, and coaching at a program level (CANs, taskforces, councils, forums, etc.) as well as partnership development and community/partner engagement at the systems level (onboarding, trainings, retention, etc.).
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Community Members (n) – individuals who are within our network and partnership and are most impacted by decisions made.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Community Partners – individuals who represent their community or neighborhood and get their informal authority from their spheres of influence such as neighborhoods and informal associations.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Community Partnership – The practice of building and continually fostering a connection between school, local community, and families of the youth and students a program serves.
CAN: MESH
Continuous Communication – consistent and open communication across the many stakeholders to build trust, assure mutual objectives, build public will, and appreciate common agenda.
General
Continuous Improvement (n/v) – the practice of repetitive self-evaluation and change in the interest of improving the individual(s), the program, organization, or entity.
CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Core Indicator (n) – a key measurement that fundamentally quantifies the achievement of/or progress toward achieving a result.
Council: Data
Correlation (n) – a relationship between two factors, where one factor may or may not influence or cause the other factor.
Council: Data
Council (n) – group of partners with shared expertise; formally constituted and meeting consistently to provide guidance to the Partnership.
General | Council: Data
Cultural Appropriation (v) – theft of cultural elements—including symbols, art, language, customs, etc.—for one’s own use, commodification, or profit, often without understanding, acknowledgement, or respect for its value in the original culture. Results from the assumption of a dominant culture’s right to take other cultural elements.
SOURCE: Colors of Resistance Archive, “Cultural Appropriation” (accessed 28 June 2013)
Council: Racial Equity
Culture (n) – the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.
A social system of meaning and custom that is developed by a group of people to assure its adaptation and survival. These groups are distinguished by a set of unspoken rules that shape values, beliefs, habits, patterns of thinking, behaviors and styles of communication.
SOURCE: Institute for Democratic Renewal and Project Change Anti-Racism Initiative, A Community Builder’s Tool Kit, Appendix I (2000)
Council: Racial Equity
Data Analysis (n) – a review of numbers, figures, charts, and stories to provide meaning, explanation, and context. This review may also show patterns that take place over time.
Council: Data
Data Fidelity (n) – the concept of numbers, figures, words accurately representing what they mean to describe.
Council: Data
Data Governance (n) – a collection of practices, rules and procedures to ensure formal management of data assets within an organization.
Council: Data
Data Stewardship (n) – the implementation of the practices, rules and procedures that ensure formal management of data assets within an organization.
Council: Data
Dimensions of Diversity (n) – include gender, religious beliefs, race, marital status, ethnicity, parental status, age, education, physical and mental ability, income, sexual orientation, occupation, language, geographic location, and many more components.
Council: Racial Equity
Diploma (n) – a qualification awarded in the United States upon high school, or post-secondary completion. Typically obtained after a course of study.
CAN: Career Pathways
Disparity (n) – a gap that signifies a difference or inequality between two things or groups.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Domain (n) – a single broad area containing related and fundamental elements of a structure, mission or vision of a program, organization, or entity.
General | Council: Racial Equity | CAN: MESH
Eastside Early Learning Facilitators (EELF) – the term used to refer to the Community Facilitators that act as a liaison between the Latino Community and Early Learning Providers.
CAN: Early Learning
Egg Chart (n) – a way to display data showing the nested relationship between discrete programs, agencies, systems, and whole populations.
CONTEXT: This chart encourages the viewer to see their own (or their organization’s) influence, authority change as the size of the population changes. This illustrates the limits of impact on larger populations and the depths of impact in specific areas.
Council: Data | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
English Language Learner (ELL) – anyone who is learning English in addition to their primary or their other known languages.
Council: Data | CAN: Early Learning
Equality (n) – equal distribution of resources and/or access.
Council: Racial Equity | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Equitable Results Fish Scale (n) – a process which helps a group of people align on a shared understanding, data, strategies, and tasks to improve a current state.
General | CAN: Early Learning
Equity (n) – shared ownership; distribution of resources or actions taken responsive to the traits, lived experience, and values of individuals or groups.
Council: Racial Equity | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Equity Pledge (n) – a document co-developed by the EP POC Only CAN and the taskforce of leaders representing all the of the EP stakeholder groups outlining the shared understanding, vision and commitment to taking continuous action towards reducing harm and increasing equity, specifically as it relates to racism and its impacts.
Council: Racial Equity
Ethnicity (n) – a social group that has a common national or cultural identity, or tradition.
Council: Data, Racial Equity
Factors (n) – one of several things that cause or influence something negatively or positively.
General | Council: Data
Focus Population (n) – a collection of individuals for whom a strategy/plan/result is going to have the most direct impact.
Council: Data | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Gaps (n) – the distance between a particular point and the established baseline (i.e. the opportunity gap between two groups of students).
CONTEXT: The concept of gaps is based on a certain group or performance level being the normal level.
Council: Data
General Educational Development (GED) (n) – these tests are a group of four subject tests which, when passed, provide certification that the test taker has United States or Canadian high school-level academic skills. It is an alternative to the US high school diploma, HiSET, and TASC test.
CONTEXT: Completing the GED tends to be more challenging and often takes more time to obtain than a high school diploma, Hopelink GED program.
CAN: Career Pathways
Goals (n) – the object of a person’s or organization’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.
General | Council: Data
Gracious Space (n) – a spirit and a setting where we learn in public and acknowledge the feeling, person, idea, demographic that is not currently present in a room or setting.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Inclusion (n) – the practice or policy of providing equal access to opportunities and resources for people who might otherwise be excluded or marginalized.
Authentically bringing traditionally excluded individuals and/or groups into processes, activities, and decision/policy making in a way that shares power.
SOURCE: OpenSource Leadership Strategies
Council: Racial Equity | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Indicators (n) – used to track an initiative’s (set of work) progress towards both outcomes and impact goals using existing or new data sources and methodologies.
SOURCE: Collective Impact Forum
General
Individualism (n) – a social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control.
Council: Racial Equity
Individualized Education Program (IEP) (n) – a legal document under United States law that is developed for each public-school child in the U.S. who needs special education. It is created through a team of the child’s parent and school-district personnel who are knowledgeable about the child’s needs.
Council: Data | CAN: Career Pathways
Institutional (adj) – established as a convention or norm in an organization or culture; things that occur without saying across organizations, sectors, groups, etc.
Council: Racial Equity
Integration (n) – the intermixing of people or groups previously segregated without losing their norms, values, language, etc.
Council: Racial Equity
Internalized Racial Superiority (n) – cultural conditioning and mental models that make people believe themselves to be right, normal, good, and hyper-responsible.
Council: Racial Equity
Internalized Racism (n) – the situation that occurs in a racist system when a racial group oppressed by racism supports the supremacy and dominance of the dominating group by maintaining or participating in the set of attitudes, behaviors, social structures, and ideologies that undergird the dominating group’s power.
It involves four essential and interconnected elements:
- Decision-making
- Resources
- Standards
- Naming the problem
SOURCE: Donna Bivens, Internalized Racism: A Definition (Women’s Theological Center, 1995)
Council: Racial Equity
Internship (n) – the position of a student or trainee who works in an organization, sometimes without pay, in order to gain work experience or satisfy requirements for a qualification.
CAN: Career Pathways
Interpersonal (adj) – relating to relationships or communication between people.
Council: Racial Equity
Intersectionality (n) – a prism to see the interactive effects of various forms of discrimination and disempowerment. It looks at the way that race, many times, interacts with other dimensions of diversity, for example gender, sexual orientation, class, xenophobia — seeing that the overlapping vulnerabilities created by these systems actually create specific kinds of challenges.
SOURCE: Intergroup Resources, “Intersectionality” (2012), Otamere Guobadia, “Kimberlé Crenshaw and Lady Phyll Talk Intersectionality, Solidarity, and Self-Care” (2018)
Council: Racial Equity
Kindergarten Readiness (n) – refers to the developmental domains that contribute to children’s ability to adapt to the kindergarten classroom, which is often a new and unfamiliar environment.
Council: Data | CAN: Early Learning
Learnings (n) – the ways in which things expand, contract and/or adapt; consciousness. (see Equity Pledge)
Council: Racial Equity
Levers (n) – elements, conditions, patterns of behavior and structures that can be adapted to change current outcomes. (see Factors, Equity Pledge)
Council: Racial Equity
Measure (n) – a statement defining change (positive or negative) that can be tracked over time. (i.e. customer satisfaction rating, employee retention, high school graduation rate, or rate of employment)
Council: Data
Measurement (v) – the action of tracking something, particularly how we are working together and the lagging indicators – outcomes for kids; tracking the intended and unintended consequences of activity and inactivity. (see Indicator, Levers, Performance Measure)
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Mental Models (n) – someone’s thought process about how something works in the world. Mental models help shape our behavior and define our approach to solving problems and carrying out tasks.
SOURCE: Annie E. Casey, Results Based Facilitation
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Mentorship (n) – the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor to a mentee.
CAN: Career Pathways
Mindsets Essential Skills and Habits (MESH) – a campaign within the Mental Health and Wellbeing CAN that engages Eastside Pathways Partners- school districts, in and out of school Providers, high school youth and families to collaboratively build a framework to measure and index the quality and efficacy of their programs ensuring that it centers the social emotional wellbeing of the youth they serve.
CAN: MESH
MESH Indicator (n) – specific and measurable research-informed actions that programs, organizations, or entities can take to achieve and/or raise their level of quality in that specific domain.
CAN: MESH
Microaggression (n) – the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.
SOURCE: Derald Wing Sue, PhD, Microaggressions: More than Just Race (Psychology Today, 17 November 2010). APA Sycnet
CONTEXT: Often leading to or resulting in trauma. APA Sycnet
Council: Racial Equity
Mindset (n) – attitude, values, assumptions, methods or notions held by someone.
Council: Racial Equity | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Model Minority (n) – a term created by sociologist William Peterson to describe the Japanese community and now applied to people labeled Asian; rooted in colorism and anti-Blackness.
SOURCE: Asian American Activism: The Continuing Struggle, Glossary (2016)
Council: Racial Equity
Moving the Needle (v) – a term used to describe progress being made on an outcome.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Mutually Reinforcing Activities – actions taken by stakeholders that are both differentiated and coordinated through a plan of action.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Negative Feedback Loops (n) – elements designed to hold a system to some equilibrium, its purpose is to keep the system state called “room temperature” fairly constant at a desired level. Any negative feedback loop needs a goal (the thermostat setting), a monitoring and signaling device to detect excursions from the goal (the thermostat), and a response mechanism (the furnace and/or air conditioner, fans, heat pipes, fuel, etc.).
SOURCE: Leverage Points Place to Intervene in a System, Donella Meadows
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Neutral Facilitator (n) – a person skilled in working with groups, who helps the group address specific needs, gives the work back to the group, and does not use his/her/their authority to pursue a personal agenda.
SOURCE: Anne E. Casey, Results Based Facilitation
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
North Star (n) – a beacon of inspiration and hope; landmark that helps those who follow it determine direction as it glows brightly to guide and lead toward a purposeful destination.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Opportunity Gap (n) – disparity of inputs and resources available between two demographically distinct groups of students. (i.e. zip code, wealth, home stability, educational choice).
CONTEXT: This term more accurately describes the conditions students and youth face in their academic careers and beyond.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Oppression (n) – the systematic subjugation of one social group by a more powerful social group for the social, economic, and political benefit of the more powerful social group.
SOURCE: What Is Racism? − Dismantling Racism Works (dRworks) web workbook.
Council: Racial Equity
Organizational Partners (n) – individuals who represent an organization get their formal authority from the role they play within an organization.
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Other (n) – individuals or groups not at the table
SOURCE: Adaptive leadership (leave space for “the other” who is not at the table to contribute to this discussion)
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Othering (v) – viewing or treating (a person or group of people) as intrinsically different from and alien to or less than oneself.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Participant (n) – individual contributing to the work of the Partnership, subset of the stakeholder group.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Partner (n) – individuals or entities who have formally agreed to exchange resources (time, treasure, talent).
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Partnership (n) – a pair or group contributing to and/or engaged together in the same activity.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Performance Measure (n) – a statement or set of statements describing a desired task or outcome in order to increase transparency and accountability for an individual, group or organization. These sets of statements can capture the progress made toward an ultimate goal.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Person – Role – System Framework (n) – a practice designed to identify a person’s individual preferences and style and personal and professional experiences as well as the role he or she plays in formal and informal systems.
SOURCE: Annie E. Casey Foundation
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Positive Feedback Loops (n) – enhance or amplify changes, tends to move a system away from its equilibrium state, sources of growth, explosion, erosion, and collapse in systems. For example, “success to the successful” loops.
SOURCE: Leverage Points Place to Intervene in a System, Donella Meadows
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Post-secondary (n) – education that takes place after high school.
CAN: Career Pathways
Power Hoarding (n) – concentrating power into one or a few people.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Privilege (n) – unearned social power accorded by the formal and informal institutions of society to ALL members of a dominant group (e.g. white privilege, male privilege, etc.). Privilege is usually invisible to those who have it, but nevertheless it puts them at an advantage over those who do not have it.
SOURCE: Colours of Resistance Archive, Privilege (accessed 28 June 2013)
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Professional Development (n) – the practice of educating and equipping staff with the skills and behaviors leading to productive and supportive interactions with students and youth.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Program Quality (n) – the intentional practice of aligning a program to the needs and requirements of the participants.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Programmatic (adj) – action that is situational or implemented within a set timeframe, not perpetual.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Promotores (n) – the Promotor Model is a grassroots approach to building community capacity that engages Community members who act as natural liaisons and helpers in strengthening their leadership skills as they connect people to needed information, services, and resources. Because they share the same language, culture, ethnicity, status, and experiences of their communities, Promotores can reduce the common barriers to services for native-born and immigrant communities.
SOURCE: The Promotor Model, A Model for Building Healthy Communities: A Framing Paper, 2011, funded by The California Endowment
CAN: Early Learning
Qualitative (adj) – non-numerical data obtained though description, observation, lived experience.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Quality Scale (n) – measure of a program’s current state based on a specific indicator.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Quantitative (adj) – numerical data in the form of counts and numbers providing information on how much, how many, when.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Race (n) – a category of people who share a distinctive physical trait. A human-invented social construct; classification system used as a tool for oppression and violence.
Council: Racial Equity
Racial Healing (v) – restoring to health or soundness; repairing or setting right; to restore to spiritual wholeness
SOURCE: Michael R. Wenger, Racial Equity Resource Guide (W.K. Kellogg Foundation, 2012)
Council: Racial Equity
Results at the Center (n) – a visual process allowing individuals to list contributions that partners and stakeholders make in moving toward the result of any particular strategy. This chart is often represented as a series of co-centric circles allowing the viewer to see what sectors are missing or over-represented in the work.
SOURCE: Putting Results at the Center Worksheet – Jolie Bain Pillsbury – Theory of Aligned Contributions
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Results (n) – a consequence, effect, or outcome of something.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways
Secondary School (n) – the last seven years, in the United States, of formal middle or junior high school education grade 6 (age 11–12) through high school grade 12 (age 17–18).
CAN: Career Pathways
Sector (n) – groupings that share the same or related services/products; and which are distinct from each other; subset of the community. Can also be thought of as an industry or market.
SOURCE: Investopedia. Example: Faith-based, private, education, healthcare, etc.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Shared Accountability (n) – the recognition and commitment of every stakeholder that is related to the results to hold themselves in intentional aligned action toward better outcomes.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Shared Measurement (n/v) – collecting data and measuring results consistently across all participants to ensure activities remain aligned, decisions are data-driven and participants hold each other accountable.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, MESH
Shared power (n) – the distribution of authority, power, and/or influence, helps reduce conflicts between groups.
General | Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Career Pathways, Early Learning, MESH
Situational (adj) – element that is person, place and/or time dependent.
Council: Racial Equity
Small Test of Change (n) – implementation of an intervention (strategy, solution, tactic, etc.) for a short duration of time within an area or population of focus.
General | Council: Racial Equity | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) (n) – the act of building and developing the competencies and skills necessary for managing emotions, setting goals, overcoming adversity, making responsible decisions and exhibiting humanity to oneself and others.
CAN: MESH
Stakeholder (n) – individuals or entities with the ability to influence the social issue that is the focus of the collective initiative. They may represent individuals, public, private, nonprofit, or philanthropic sectors.
SOURCE: Collective Impact Forum
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Strategies (n) – evidence-informed activities and processes that support the adoption and implementation of each goal, typically selected by working groups.
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Structural (adj) – element that is woven into and/or a part of a complex whole.
Council: Racial Equity
Summer Melt (Student Melt) (n) – the phenomenon of prospective college students’ motivation to attend college “melting” away during the summer between the end of high school and beginning of college.
CAN: Career Pathways
Supportive Environment (n) – the practice of creating a setting that actively engages students and youth while providing opportunities for planning, setting of goals and tackling real-world problems.
CAN: MESH
System (n) – group of interdependent actors and factors, both formal and informal, forming a complex social problem. No one person or organization has the ability to influence the entire system, but working together, the group can move towards systems change.
SOURCE: Collective Impact Forum
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Systemic (adj) – element that is spread throughout the system and occurs without being prompted.
Council: Racial Equity | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Systems Map (n) – shows the components and boundary of a system and the components of the environment at a point in time, often used to identify key stakeholders and lines of communication.
Council: Data
Systems Thinking Iceberg (n) – makes clear the ways in which our thought process (see Mental Models) informs outcomes and identify where to make changes.
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Targeted Universalism (n) – setting universal goals pursued by targeted processes to achieve those goals. Within a targeted universalism framework, universal goals are established for all groups concerned. The strategies developed to achieve those goals are targeted, based upon how different groups are situated within structures, culture, and across geographies to obtain the universal goal. Targeted universalism is goal oriented, and the processes are directed in service of the explicit, universal goal.
SOURCE: Targeted Universalism: Policy & Practice – A Primer by John A. Powell, Stephen Menendian, and Wendy Ake (Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, 2019). See also RacialEquityTools.org, FUNDAMENTALS / Core Concepts / Theory
General | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Targets (n) – short-, medium-, or long-term goals that an individual, group or organization is focused on achieving.
Council: Data
Taskforce (n) – a group of people who are brought together, usually for a short, defined period, to deal with a particular problem.
General
Technical Challenge – problems that can be resolved using available knowledge and expertise.
General | Council: Data
The Partnership (n) – in this instance, refers specifically to Eastside Pathways Partnership.
General
Theory of Aligned Contributions (n) – contends that it is more likely that measurable population level change will occur when the right group of leaders use specific skills to align their actions and make contributions to a specific result.
SOURCE: Annie E. Casey Foundation
General
Theory of Change (n) – a comprehensive description and illustration of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. It is focused on mapping out or “filling in” what has been described as the “missing middle” between what a program or change initiative does (its activities or interventions) and how these lead to desired goals being achieved. It does this by first identifying the desired long-term goals and then works back from these to identify all the conditions (outcomes) that must be in place (and how these are related to one another causally) for the goals to occur.
CAN: Early Learning
Think Tanks (n) – a body of experts providing advice and ideas on specific problems.
General
Time Boundaries (n) – a set of time expectations within which measurements are expected to be accomplished.
Council: Data
Trauma (n) – damage to a person’s mind because of one or more events that cause overwhelming amounts of stress that exceed the person’s ability to cope or integrate the emotions involved, eventually leading to serious, long-term negative consequences; also passed along generation to generation.
Council: Racial Equity
Trend (n) – patterns that occur over time.
Council: Data
Validation (v) – the act of centering people, for whom changes are being made, in gaining clarity and measurement.
Council: Data, Racial Equity | CAN: Early Learning, MESH
Values (n) – a person’s principles or standards of behavior; one’s judgment of what is important in life; often internalized norms from social groups or familial origins.
Council: Racial Equity
Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) – includes an assessment that is administered during the first two months of kindergarten. Teachers observe students across six areas of development and learning: Social-Emotional, Physical, Language, Cognitive, Literacy and Math. While the only requirement for kindergarten is to be five years of age by August 31, children who demonstrate readiness in all six areas have a greater likelihood of success in kindergarten and beyond.
Council: Data | CAN: Early Learning
White Supremacy (n) – the belief and construction of norms that centers White people as a superior race that should therefore dominate society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups, particularly Black people.
Council: Racial Equity
Whiteness (n) – refers to the specific dimensions of racism that serve to elevate white people over people of color. Whites are theorized as actively shaped, affected, defined, and elevated through their racialization and the individual and collective consciousness formed within it; conceptualized as a constellation of processes and practices rather than as a discrete entity (i.e., skin color alone). Whiteness is dynamic, relational, and operating at all times and on myriad levels. These processes and practices include basic rights, values, beliefs, perspectives, and experiences purported to be commonly shared by all but which are actually only consistently afforded to white people.
SOURCE: PBS, “Race: The Power of an Illusion” (2018–2019 relaunch of 2003 series), Robin DiAngelo, “White Fragility” (International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 2011)
Council: Racial Equity
Workforce Development (n) – training programs that provide existing and potential workers with the skills to complete tasks needed by employers to let organizations stay competitive.
CAN: Career Pathways
Workforce Readiness (n) – state of having the basic academic, critical thinking, and personal skills necessary to maintain employment.
CAN: Career Pathways
Youth Program Quality Assessment (YPQA) (n) – a research-backed framework designed to measure the quality of youth programs and identify staff training needs.
SOURCE: David P Weikart Centro for Youth Program Quality
CAN: MESH
Zero-sum Mindset (n) – thinking perceives situations as zero-sum games, where one person’s gain would be another’s loss.
Council: Racial Equity
“Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them; one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savor their songs.” — Nelson Mandela
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