Inclusive Science Glossary
In a biomedical and Canadian context.
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The concept of whether a product or service can be used by everyone—however they encounter it.
Accessibility means that all people – specifically including those with disabilities – can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with a product/service.
According to Merriam Webster dictionary, something is accessible if it is able to be: reached or approached, used or obtained, easily appreciated or understood.
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Bias toward wanting to surround ourselves with people who look like us and share our cultural values, which can inadvertently lead to only recruiting and hiring trainees of majority identities.
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Not only teaching, but encouraging the learner to see, ask, understand, try, and then adjust the approach to work in this situation.
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Authentically documenting learners knowledge and learning in an equitable and culturally responsive way.
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The responsibility or ownership of outcomes, confidence in skills or ability to achieve, and engagement with self-led learning or teaching
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The experience of being accepted, included and valued by others. A fundamental human motivation, belonging positively influences an individual’s health, abilities, relationships, and overall well-being.
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An environment of intentional exclusion and hostility toward trainees and scholars from underrepresented groups.
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An iterative, bidirectional collaboration between researchers and laypeople to create knowledge. This process can broaden public engagement in medical research.
Co-creation is related to theories of crowdsourcing, community-based participatory research, citizen science, and participatory action research.
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The invasion, dispossession, and subjugation of one people to another. The long-term result of such dispossession is institutionalized inequality. The colonizer/colonized relationship is by nature an unequal one that benefits the colonizer at the expense of the colonized.
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Exchanging, connecting, and making the results of research from scientific data to published literature to learner content to patient and consumer health information more readily available.
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A feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.
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Trained healthcare professionals who promote the health and wellbeing of communities, create 'bridges' between socially and economically marginalized populations and mainstream health and social services, address the social determinants of health, engage with communities to strengthen community capacity, advocate for equity, and catalyze change.
CHWs may carry out activities such as health education and support, infectious and chronic disease prevention and management, support for pre-natal, labour & delivery, and post-natal help; navigation of health, and social services, education, and employment resources support; mediation between families and services, such as child welfare intervention or disability services; and partnering to address common issues.
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An infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Most people infected with the virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. However, some will become seriously ill and require medical attention.
The effect of social determinants of health and COVID-19 morbidity is perhaps underappreciated. Yet, the great public health lesson is that for centuries pandemics disproportionately affect the poor and disadvantaged.
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A blend of knowledge, conviction, and capacity for action by respecting diversity in the learner, educator, and patient and cultural factors that can affect learning, research, clinical practice, and health and health care, such as language, communication styles, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.
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A dynamic social system of meaning and custom that is developed by a group of people and distinguished by a set of spoken and unspoken rules that shape values, beliefs, habits, patterns of thinking, behaviours, customs, and styles of communication.
It is an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.
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Differences in race, color, place of origin, religion, immigrant and newcomer status, ethnic origin, ability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, and others. It consists of the conditions, expressions, and experiences of different groups.
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The term 'disability' covers many different spheres of life. It includes a diverse group of people with different ways of physically existing in the world, as well as different ways of communicating, thinking and feeling.
Disability can include:
Congenital conditions, such as for example, Downs syndrome, cerebral palsy, as well as deafness and blindness.
Acquired conditions can include physical or mental injuries resulting from war, violence, accidents and illnesses such as brain trauma or loss of limbs.
In an April 2021 report, the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics found that 8.89% of Ph.D. awardees in the biological and biomedical sciences reported having one or more disabilities (48). The report also found that disabled scientists and engineers experienced higher unemployment rates and received fewer research assistantships, traineeships, internships, fellowships, scholarships, and grants than those without disabilities.
Those with disability are often excluded from deliberations about the kinds of treatments or therapies that the field should use and pursue Covered in Teaching and learning;
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Desire and capability to actively choose to participate in learning, research, and care in a way uniquely appropriate to the individual, in cooperation with an educator, healthcare provider or institution, for the purposes of maximizing outcomes or improving experiences of the individual.
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The removal of systemic barriers and biases to enable all individuals to have equal opportunity to access and benefit from all aspects of society.
To achieve this, all individuals who participate in the research ecosystem must develop a strong understanding of the systemic barriers faced by individuals from underrepresented groups (e.g., women, persons with disabilities, Indigenous Peoples, racialized minorities, individuals from the LGBTQ2+ community) and put in place impactful measures to remove these barriers.
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The quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent.
Cultural perceptions and practices, health experiences, and susceptibility to disease vary greatly among broad racial-ethnic groups and requires the collection of nuanced data to understand.
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Focusing on European culture or history to the exclusion of a wider view of the world; implicitly regarding European culture as preeminent.
Despite discoveries in science being historically multicultural (for example, ancient Chinese, Indian and Islamic civilisations contributed greatly to science pre-Renaissance), the expansion of European power in the world led to the development of Eurocentric science appropriated from earlier discoveries from other parts of the world.
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In the Universal Design for Learning, expression encourages students to demonstrate their learning through various forms (e.g., exams, multimedia, concept maps, papers, projects). This principle highlights executive functioning, where students apply what they learn strategically. That is, it involves finding, creating, using, and organizing information.
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A critical component in addressing learner variability and guides learners toward mastery rather than a fixed notion of performance or compliance; towards successful long-term habits and learning practices.
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Refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and gender diverse people.
It influences how people perceive themselves and each other, how they act and interact, and the distribution of power and resources in society.
Gender is not confined to a binary (girl/woman, boy/man) nor is it static; it exists along a continuum and can change over time.
There is considerable diversity in how individuals and groups understand, experience and express gender through the roles they take on, the expectations placed on them, relations with others and the complex ways that gender is institutionalized in society. Gender expression ≠ gender identity.
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Preventable differences in the burden of disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal health that are experienced by socially disadvantaged populations.
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All the activities whose primary purpose is to promote, restore or maintain health.
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Collection of “implicit academic, social, and cultural messages,” “unwritten rules and unspoken expectations,” and “unofficial norms, behaviours and values” of the dominant-culture context in which all teaching and learning is situated.
In a healthcare setting, the discrepancy between what is taught to learners in formal settings and what students learn in the informal flow of professional practice.
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Social and personal, including but not limited to race, gender, gender expression, sex, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, and physical and mental abilities.
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The practice of ensuring that all individuals are valued and respected equitably for their contributions and have access to the same opportunity and are equally supported.
Inclusion ensures that all team members are integrated and supported and is fundamental to achieving research and training excellence.
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A method or philosophy of designing that means welcoming diverse people to engage authentically with your organization, products, and services. It considers cultural, social, and other needs, which extend past those of the perceived ‘average’ or ‘typical’ user. It complies with legal accessibility codes, considers content itself (clear language and non-exclusionary language), and takes into account usability.
Inclusive design is about engaging authentically with the diverse people who make up markets and audiences, it is not only about accessible accommodations and serving individual edge cases.
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Focus on terminology that avoids bias and conveys respect. Algonquin College provides guidelines on inclusive terminology.
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There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous Peoples in a global context. Some countries refer to Indigenous Peoples as the people who were there at first contact. Others refer to Indigenous Peoples as nomadic peoples within their borders.
In Canada, we use a definition of Indigenous Peoples as Indian, Inuit, and Métis Peoples as stated in Section 35.
Definitions as provided by Bob Joseph, '21 Things You May Not Know About The Indian Act’
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An understanding of both your own and other cultures, and particularly the similarities and differences between them. These similarities and differences may be in terms of values, beliefs, or behaviour.
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The framework considers the differences in power relationships for individuals from different marginalized groups and ensures that these are accounted for when strategizing about EDI.
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An activity or set of activities aimed at modifying a process, course of action or sequence of events in order to change one or several of their characteristics such as performance of expected outcome.
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Two-way exchange between researchers and research users, to share ideas, research evidence, experiences and skills. It refers to any process through which academic ideas and insights are shared, and external perspectives and experiences are brought into academia.
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A wide range of activities relating to the production and use of research results, including knowledge synthesis, dissemination, transfer, exchange, and co-creation or co-production by researchers and knowledge users.
Effective knowledge mobilization includes plans to store data in the public domain, where appropriate.
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A shared set of verbal codes, such as English, Spanish, Mandarin, French, and Swahili. But language can also be defined as a generic, communicative phenomenon, especially in descriptions of instruction.
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An acronym used to refer to the two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/queer, intersex, asexual communities and all other marginalized groups
The placement of Two Spirit (2S) first is to recognize that Indigenous people are the first peoples of this land and their understanding of gender and sexuality precedes colonization
The ‘+’ is for all the new and growing ways we become aware of sexual orientations and gender diversity
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A state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.
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Plays a critical role in the training and career development of professionals, researchers, and scientists. Mentorship us fluid depending on who is mentored and encompasses a variety of activities, including advising, teaching, coaching, advocacy, sponsorship, and role modelling, as well as assistance with personal development and achieving a work–life balance.
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When researchers and stakeholders work together collaboratively on a research project for knowledge translation and implementation.
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The study of teaching methods, including the aims of education and the ways in which such goals may be achieved.
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Having influence, authority, or control over people and/or resources.
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The unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements, benefits, and choices bestowed on people solely based on a single characteristic
Privilege can be due to numerous attributes such as race, gender, age, sexual orientation, education, ability, etc.
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A social construct; biologically meaningless when applied to humans – physical differences such as skin color or facial features have no natural association with group differences in ability or behavior.
The Human Genome Project demonstrated that 99.9% of human genetics are identical including between race.
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System of advantage based on race. Includes laws, institutions, cultural messages, and policies that work in tandem with individual and group level behaviours to produce racial inequity.
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Depicting or 'making present' something which is absent (e.g. people, places, events, or abstractions).
Representation in science allows individuals to see themselves whether that be in curriculum, leadership & professional roles, and health systems. In surveying nearly 1,000 Black and Latino students, the researchers found that thinking outside the stereotype of who a scientist is - including a scientists' interests and identity outside of their research - helps students feel more positive and encouraged in studying science themselves.
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A general plan or strategy for conducting a research study to examine specific testable research questions of interest.
Inequities in research design include sex and gender disparities in health research
Research & Scholarship, lack of intersectional identities, and reciprocity and respect of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples.
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Refers to a set of biological attributes in humans and animals,
It is primarily associated with physical and physiological features including chromosomes, gene expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy,
Sex is usually categorized as female or male but there is variation in the biological attributes that comprise sex and how those attributes are expressed.
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Stigma is defined as a social process the involves labeling and stereotyping that leads to discrimination in situations where there is a power differential, like the kind that exists between clinicians and patients.
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A framework that considers these points to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn. UDL Guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.
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Different ways people arrive at a sense of knowledge of the world and respective fields (including reason, perception, empirics, and others).
"Indigenous Ways of Knowing" recognizes the beautiful complexity and diversity of Indigenous ways of learning and teaching and helps educate people about the vast variety of knowledge that exists across diverse Indigenous communities.
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