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This chapter provides an exciting opportunity to advance our knowledge of equality and diversity of students in higher education (HE). My main reason for choosing this topic is personal interest.

Critical race theory (CRT) and the social identity theory were used as analytical tools in understanding equality and diversity of students in higher education.

Managing equality and diversity of students in higher education can be done through the tournament conception, trial conception, leveling conception, remedy conception, and job-interview conception. The primary intrinsic limit to equality of opportunity of students in higher education institutions (HEIs) is the persistence of irreducible differences between families in their economic, social, and cultural resources. Policy can partly compensate for economic differences but can scarcely eliminate the potency of the family in cultural capital and social networks. Students from advantaged social groups enjoy more access to elite universities through the influence of policies. Disadvantaged students from social groups are excluded from accessing top HEIs. Students in elite universities enjoy more advanced educational opportunities than those in nonelite universities, and they are more advantaged to be placed in the job market.

Student pedagogic (content knowledge) and formative (evaluation) opportunities in HEIs may not be achieved when equality and diversity is dissociated from its academic content and reduced to access for the sake of access. Universities are expected to develop a repertoire of lecturing methods to enable students to learn (Gudmundsdottir, 1990, p. 47). Students constrained by financial considerations, or not given a choice, are not in a position to achieve equality and diversity in their choices of the benefits offered by HEIs as the constrains may limit them from having the necessary resources. Differences between the students’ contexts of learning may also place limit to their performance ability because of the differentiated contextual background. Recruit of students to universities should include students from diverse contextual backgrounds. In addition, universities ought to integrate diversity management with their admission policies and other strategic choices. The chapter focuses only on equality and diversity for students in HEIs. Again, it is limited by relying on the researcher’s experiences and literature review only. In addition, interviews with students and staff at universities were not done because literature reviewed gave more information from researches based on findings of other scholars.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) should engage students and listen to their needs for equality and diversity to be realized. Debate continues about the best strategies for the management of discrimination that comes in many forms depending on the perceptions of the individuals affected.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to consider “equality mainstreaming” as an international policy and to explore some of the implications this raises for public management.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The methodology is based on literature review looking at the way gender mainstreaming practices have developed a wider application to equality mainstreaming. Examining the relationship between mainstreaming and evidence-based management, it comments on the challenges this poses for public management.

Findings – Equality mainstreaming and its implications have been largely absent from public management discourse despite the growth of equality mainstreaming in international policy.

Research limitations/Implications – Research in public management should address mainstreaming and its potential for social change.

Practical implications – This chapter brings this issue to the forefront in an effort to engage academics and public managers.

Social implications – This chapter raises theoretical questions about mainstreaming and social change in favor of equality. It is a starting point for further research on public management as a tool for shifting organizational and societal values.

Originality/Value – The chapter provides an overview of previous literature and policy development in this area and then moves on to explore the implications of extending mainstreaming as a concept to other policy areas and examines both challenges and opportunities raised by this approach for the management of values in public services.

The introduction highlights the historical gender gap in financial empowerment and how Fintech, particularly in the wake of COVID-19, has facilitated financial inclusion for women in India, offering digital solutions to overcome social restrictions. The objective of this chapter is to assess the impact of Fintech on sustainable women empowerment in India. The methodology involves surveying 230 women in Delhi NCR and analyzing factors such as financial literacy, decision-making, financial freedom, security, employability, career growth, and gender equality. The results indicate that Fintech has improved financial awareness and security for women, empowered them in financial decision-making, and fostered professional growth. The implications suggest that the Fintech industry plays a promising role in achieving gender equality by providing women with access to financial instruments, leading to increased economic contribution, personal confidence, and freedom. Fintech has the potential to reduce gender inequality and financial vulnerability at a macro level, empowering women to actively participate in the economy and contributing to sustained gender equality and economic growth.

Girls’ access to education has improved in many of the world's developing countries. These countries are striving to meet the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) requiring them to provide gender equality, promote the empowerment of women, and establish universal primary education (UPE) by 2015. The success of UPE in achieving gender equality in enrollment in those countries able to institute it is encouraging. Where previously girls trailed boys in their ability to access education due to parent inability or reluctance to pay the costs, they are now entering primary schools in comparable numbers (UNESCO, 1999, 2006).

To understand the relationship of social justice ideas to the role of a public library and its organizational members, particularly in terms of how information services are developed to meet the needs of patrons. Additionally, this research also examines the relationship between public library organizational rhetoric and the social justice ideas used by organizational members.

Uses a single case study, mixed-method approach informed by Yin (2013) with semi-structured interviews of library staff, text analysis of organizational rhetoric (mission statement and strategic plan), observation of the library’s Board of Trustees and an emic-etic content analysis method developed in Dadlani and Todd (2014, 2016a, 2016b).

Some findings include that both utilitarian and egalitarian distributions of service were used, sometimes one replacing the other based on the supply-demand of the situation. In terms of what is meant by equality, there is a utilitarian idea to the use of resources, those geographically closer are given more benefits, at the same time, the library fulfills needs based on something like an equality of capabilities approach, where the basic functionings of the community are central. Unexpectedly, a tension was observed between the ideas of the library as an unbiased and neutral information conduit and the library as a community hub that also espouses particular cultural/public values. Importantly, it was found that social justice ideas, like equality, had significantly different meanings across members of the library staff, thereby highlighting the contestable nature of social justice concepts.

This research provides a methodological example of how the extant philosophical literature on social justice concepts can be used to analyze libraries. It also provides a structured approach to understanding the role of social justice in different forms of librarianship and may be applicable in other types of information intensive organizations (government agencies, corporate information centers, for example).

Issues of women’s education and empowerment of women have been incorporated in the framing of the role of women in international development from the 1970s, primarily as a response to the liberal feminist movement agenda of the time. This analysis examines the degree to which liberal feminism and liberal feminist theory is reflected in comparative education scholarship in the lead up to and beyond the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The analysis first explores the underpinnings of liberal feminism, which constitutes the ideal embedded in development education for girls and women. It follows up with a reflection on the literature in the field of comparative education that reference liberal feminism framework and feminist theory in exploring educational issues and ways in which the theory is located in the research. Illustration of examples that demonstrate the limits of liberal feminism as a theoretical framework and barriers to the use of liberal feminist theory as an ideological guide are captured in the findings. The search is limited to the six dominant scholarly outlets in the field of comparative education; namely Comparative Education Review (CER), Comparative Education (CE), Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education (Compare), Prospects: Quarterly Review of Comparative Education (Prospects), International Review of Education (IRE), and the International Journal of Educational Development (IJED). Only works that explicitly mention liberal feminism/liberal feminist perspectives are included in the analysis. This research contributes to the acknowledgement of the liberal feminist theory in development education and for the field of comparative education. It will also help with understanding the politics of ideology and representation in scholarship and development interventions.

The lived experience of HIV+ Black MSM (men who have sex with men) in the South exposes persistent racialized inequality. With the highest rates of HIV diagnosis in the country, Black MSM are made to feel unequal within the US LGBTQ community, thereby perpetuating long-standing inequalities between the groups. We argue that Whites' and Blacks' differing conceptions of racial equality serve to limit the extent to which comprehensive LGBTQ equality is possible as whiteness frames the LGBTQ experience in the United States. Examining how the country's racist story of nonaccess, representation, and exclusion has stymied coalition building to eliminate inequalities, findings reveal the structural impediments toward racial parity. Utilizing the case study of HIV+ Black MSM in the South, we examine the persistence of inequality amid the thrice interwoven intramarginalization of feeling excluded from sociopolitical spaces, having limited political representation, and engaging with racist body politics.

Since the 1960s, Egypt has sought to increase equality in access to higher education. Data show that completion of pre-tertiary education has become more equal. However, this trend toward equality did not extend to higher education. Rather, entry to higher education has become more unequal during this period, principally due to tracking at the secondary level. Secondary track is highly correlated with wealth: students from the poorest families overwhelming attend technical education; most children from wealthy families attend general (academic) secondary. Lucas (2001) has called this relationship between wealth and tracking “Effectively Maintained Inequality.”

The theoretical context is necessary to understand the process that frames the gender perspective. It must be studied from the pillars of human rights, those that are inherent to the human being and that do not discriminate against age, sex, social status, etc. Being considered Universal, human rights do not contemplate political ideologies, economic systems, or cultural differences; furthermore, as it is irrevocable, it is not possible to delegate or renounce them; human rights are indivisible, that is, they are related and interconnected with each other, but they are formed as a whole. In addition, due to their nature, they are legally enforceable and recognized by the states, therefore, they require respect and compliance.

This chapter explores the relationship between disability identity, civil rights, and the law. Twenty-five years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the question remains why disability rights legislation does not go far enough toward addressing access, stigma, and discrimination issues. People with disabilities have found empowerment from disability rights laws, but these laws are also restrictive because they define people in relation to medical aspects of their disabilities and narrowly define society’s obligation for inclusion. The successes and failures of disability rights laws are an important contribution to the study of conceptions of difference.