Category Archives: DEI-BR

Awareness of diversity, equity, inclusion and bias reduction (DEI-BR) in surveys is growing, becoming increasingly indispensable as it ensures the reliability of any data collection instrument. cApStAn is a language service provider with a 20+ year experience in partnering with organizations who administer surveys in multiple languages and cultures. Our initial contribution to DEI-BR started …

“Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Bias Reduction: DEI-BR Analysis and Adjustment of survey questions”

cApStAn co-founder Steve Dept is delighted to have been invited to be a speaker at the International e-Assessment and Awards conference taking place in London June 6-7, 2023. His talk, titled “Meaning shifts, perception shifts – language as a component of inclusiveness”, is scheduled for Day 1 at 11:00 BST. In multilingual or in monolingual …

“cApStAn Founding Partner Steve Dept presenting at e-Assessment 2023 on how to mitigate bias in multilingual and monolingual assessments”

A joint USA Today/Ipsos Poll was conducted by Ipsos from March 3 to March 5, 2023, on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,023 adults age 18 or older. The sample included 311 Democrats, 290 Republicans, and 312 independents. The poll investigated respondents’ opinions on a very broad range of topical and potentially controversial issues including: …

“Findings from recent USA Today/Ipsos poll on “wokeness”, inclusive language, teaching of slavery in public schools, and banning of books now published”

Ipsos has recently unveiled the results of a global study on gender equality carried out in 32 countries, in collaboration with the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, for International Women’s Day. Ipsos interviewed a total of 22,508 adults aged 18-74 in the US, Canada, Malaysia, South Africa, and Turkey, 20-74 in …

“Recent Ipsos survey on gender equality reveals concerns about it having gone too far”

Further to widespread internal and external criticism and mockery, Stanford University has taken down their “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative” (EHLI) website, created in May 2022. The EHLI was an effort co-sponsored by the Stanford CIO Council and the People of Color in Technology (POC-IT) affinity group. The primary motivation of the initiative was to …

“Stanford University’s initiative to replace racist and harmful terminology backfires”

In 2015 the Unicode Consortium introduced the possibility to choose from different skin tones when using emoji of faces, gestures and people. This was part of an overall effort, on the part of the consortium, to improve diversity and inclusivity in emoji online communications (1). However, this move has also opened up a complex conversation …

“The introduction of emoji skin tones to improve inclusivity has opened up a complex conversation around identity and digital self-representation”

Seggs, leg booty, cornucopia, nip nops, S.A., D.V. and panoramic are just a few examples of a new vocabulary that is emerging on the TikTok social media platform, often referred to as “Algospeak”(see table below for the meanings). In a recent article for the The New York Times senior staff editor Melina Dukic writes that …

““Algospeak”, a new vocabulary that has emerged on TikTok as content creators try to get around algorithms and strict content moderation”

Cultures and societies are dynamic and so is awareness of social justice issues. Recent global movements such as #metoo and #blm have shone a light on many of the inequities in the world and highlighted the need to work towards a more inclusive society. Awareness of the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is …

““Neurodiversity” may be the next frontier in discussions around DEI in the workplace”

A study on accent bias in Britain, titled “Speaking up”, has recently been published by the Sutton Trust, a UK charity whose work focuses on social mobility issues. The study, based on the experiences of sixth-formers, university students and professionals, reveals that 30% of university students, 29% of university applicants (mainly 17-18-year-olds), and 25% of …

“Recent study reveals the extent to which accent bias is pervasive in British educational and work settings”

Gender-neutral language is a highly controversial issue across the world and the debate is now also becoming part of a culture war in Latin America, says the author of a recent article in The NY Times. In 2021, Uruguay’s public education agency issued a memo limiting the use of inclusive language. Proposals to ban gender-neutral …

“Argentina’s ban on gender-neutral language in schools reignites a debate that is reverberating across the world“

The immensely popular Cambridge Latin Course, which has been used to teach generations of British schoolchildren and has sold over 4 million copies, is undergoing its biggest revision in 20 years to improve the representation of women, minorities and enslaved people. This is in response to a consensus that it needs updating for 21st-century students and …

“Cambridge Latin Course revised to improve representation of female figures and ethnic mix in Roman Empire”

What is meant by “fairness” in tests? How is “fairness” related to “validity”? How do you preserve fairness of a test across languages and cultures in multilingual assessments? How do different cultural backgrounds influence fairness and test results? These are some of the issues addressed by cApStAn co-founder Steve Dept at a recent talk as …

““Your fairness is not my fairness”: culture-driven perception shifts and what can be done about them”