Equity
Competitive sports events have long acknowledged the need for equity. Golfers have handicapping scores. Women golfers have "red tees" that reduce the distance between the tee and the green. Female basketball players use a smaller [lower] basket than the one male basketball players use... Competitive sports events attempt to level the playing field in order to achieve equity... In events in which size and gender are significant factors in the competition, competitors are placed in categories with comparable players. For example, weightlifters, boxers, and wrestlers compete with those of like gender and size. A heavyweight does not compete with a middleweight... Competitive events that don’t account for differences in gender, physical size, or physical strength of the players are those events in which size, gender, and strength are not a factor. Skeet competition allows men and women to compete with one another because it is the power of the gun and the accuracy of the shooter that are the critical elements- not size, gender, or physical strength of the competitor. The power of the racecar or the strength of the horse is a factor so significant that it makes the person driving the car or riding the horse of lesser consequence, comparatively speaking.
Source: (Payne, Ruby K. and Paul D. Slocum, 2000, pp. 8-10. Reprinted with permission from RTF Publishing.)
What is Equity?
· A useful approach in coming to understand what equity means is to ask the question, What is fair? Fairness and justice for all people, taking into account their unique situations, is at the heart of equity.
For example:
o Let’s say two children are playing and fall and hurt themselves. One child is a hemophiliac and the other child doesn’t have anything the matter with her. Both kids are going to bleed, both kids are going to hurt. But you can’t attend to the children in the same way. Because if you do the same thing for both kids, one of the children is going to die because they don’t have the capacity to start the clotting.
Source: (Saskatchewan Education, 1997, pp. 4-5. a)
Evergreen Curriculum, http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/native10/Unit_1_IWAP.html#IWAP3