“Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Belonging” (DEI-AB, often shortened to DEI) is a phrase that shows up everywhere — schools, workplaces, nonprofits, and consulting decks — but on its own it often doesn’t change a thing about how people are treated. At its best, DEI-AB names who is in the room, who is left out, and why; at its worst, it becomes superficial language that looks nice but doesn’t shift power or access. In Stimpunks practice, DEI is not about checking boxes — it’s about making space, shifting power, and dismantling the barriers that systems have built so that some bodies and minds are always forced to adapt, mask, or disappear.
Here, DEI-AB means more than counting bodies or holding training. It means intentionally recognizing and valuing all forms of human difference, including neurodivergence, disability, race, class, gender, and culture, and actively changing structures so people can participate fully and authentically — not just superficially. Equity means allocating support according to people’s realities, not pretending everyone starts from the same place. Inclusion means creating environments where everyone’s voice is heard and valued, and where belonging isn’t conditional on conformity to dominant norms.
This field guide explores how to move DEI from theory to praxis: how to see lived experiences as data, how to shift access from checklist to constant practice, and how to design environments that don’t just tolerate difference but depend on it.
DEIAB
Diversity is strength. Difference is a teacher. Fear difference, you learn nothing.
Hannah Gadsby: Nanette
diversity = a range of differences; variety
equity = the process of redistributing access and opportunity to be fair and just; the state of being free of bias, discrimination, and identity-predictable outcomes and experiences
inclusion = the act of extending fellowship, membership, association, and connection—agnostic of rank, status, gender, race, appearance, intelligence, education, beliefs, values, politics, habits, traditions, language, customs, history, or any other defining characteristic
accessibility = accessibility means that people with disabilities can attend and fully participate in a given opportunity
belonging = the extent to which we feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others; the experience of being at home in ourselves as well as the social, environmental, organizational, and cultural contexts of our lives
Diversity is priceless. Inclusion is critical. But diversity and inclusion without equity are hollow. We reach meaningful diversity and inclusion through equity, not vice versa.
Fix Injustice, Not Kids and Other Principles for Transformative Equity Leadership
Human cognitive diversity exists for a reason; our differences are the genius – and the conscience – of our species.
A Thousand Rivers: What The Modern World Has Forgotten About Children And Learning
Diversity is a fact. Inclusion is a choice.
But not just any choice.
The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety
All human beings have the same innate need: We long to belong
.The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety
Basic Principles for Equity Literacy
An important aspect of equity literacy is its insistence on maximizing the integrity of transformative equity practice. We must avoid being lulled by popular “diversity” approaches and frameworks that pose no threat to inequity—that sometimes are popular because they are no real threat to inequity. The basic principles of equity literacy help us ensure we keep a commitment to equity at the center of our equity work and the broader equity conversation.
Basic Principles for Equity Literacy
- The Direct Confrontation Principle: The path to equity requires direct confrontations with inequity—with interpersonal, institutional, cultural and structural racism and other forms of oppression. “Equity” approaches that fail to directly identify and confront inequity play a significant role in sustaining inequity.
- The Equity Ideology Principle: Equity is more than a list of practical strategies. It is a lens and an ideological commitment. There are no practical strategies that will help us develop equitable institutions if we are unwilling to deepen our understandings of equity and inequity and reject ideologies that are not compatible with equity.
- The Prioritization Principle: In order to achieve equity we must prioritize the interests of the students and families whose interests historically have not been prioritized. Every policy, practice, and program decision should be considered through the question, “What impact is this going to have on the most marginalized students and families? How are we prioritizing their interests?”
- The Redistribution Principle: Equity requires the redistribution of material, cultural, and social access and opportunity. We do this by changing inequitable policies, eliminating oppressive aspects of institutional culture, and examining how practices and programs might advantage some students over others. If we cannot explain how our equity initiatives redistribute access and opportunity, we should reconsider them.
- The “Fix Injustice, Not Kids” Principle: Educational outcome disparities are not the result of deficiencies in marginalized communities’ cultures, mindsets, or grittiness, but rather of inequities.Equity initiatives focus, not on “fixing” students and families who are marginalized, but on transforming the conditions that marginalize students and families.
- The One Size Fits Few Principle: No individual identity group shares a single mindset, value system, learning style, or communication style. Identity-specific equity frameworks (like group-level “learning styles”) almost always are based on simplicity and stereotypes, not equity.
- The Evidence-Informed Equity Principle: Equity approaches should be based on evidence for what works rather than trendiness. “Evidence” can mean quantitative research, but it can also mean the stories and experiences of people who are marginalized in your institution.
Obstacles to DEI-AB and Neurodiversity Affirming Practice
(links are to our glossary, where you can learn much more)
- politics of resentment
- sameness-based fairness
- fundamental attribution error
- conquering gaze from nowhere
- toxic positivity
- neurodiversity-lite
- scientism
- epistemic injustice
- behaviorism
- ableism
- deficit ideology
- ”Better get used to it.”
- meritocracy myth
- “lowering the bar”
politics of resentment = manipulations of status anxiety; organization of interest groups based on perceived deprivation or the threat of deprivation
sameness-based fairness = notion of fairness where everyone gets the same thing rather than each getting what they need
fundamental attribution error = to underestimate the impact of situational factors and to overestimate the role of dispositional factors in controlling behaviour
conquering gaze from nowhere = the interpretation of objectivity as neutral and not allowing for participation or stances; an uninvolved, uninvested approach that claims objectivity to “represent while escaping representation”
toxic positivity = belief that success happens to good people and failure is just a consequence of a bad attitude rather than structural conditions
neurodiversity-lite = using neurodiversity as a buzzword; a way to profit from the appropriation of a human rights movement; a cottage industry for therapists, clinics, and companies to sell their associated products, classes, books, and training to the public without having a clue about neurodiversity
scientism = the belief that science is the only route to useful knowledge
epistemic injustice = where our status as knowers, interpreters, and providers of information, is unduly diminished or stifled in a way that undermines the agent’s agency and dignity
behaviorism = a dehumanizing mechanism of learning that reduces human beings to simple inputs and outputs
ableism = a system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness
deficit ideology = a worldview that explains and justifies outcome inequalities by pointing to supposed deficiencies within disenfranchised individuals and communities
better get used to it = preparing people for oppression by oppressing them
meritocracy myth = a widely held but false assertion that individual merit is always rewarded; the myth of meritocracy is one of the longest lasting and most dangerous falsehoods in American life
lowering the bar = a racist, sexist, and ableist narrative with no basis in reality that represents diversifying hiring pipelines, attracting candidates from underrepresented groups, and supporting them in the workplace as “lowering the bar” by hiring less-qualified individuals