Inequity Reflection

Addressing equity in my culture and workplace I recently took the equity quiz on Greenville University 's D2L website and there were a few surprises. One area where my perceptions did not match reality was the subject of parents regularly checking the completion of their children 's homework. In non-poverty families, 66% of parents always checked to ensure their children did their homework. I wrongly assumed that fewer parents in families suffering from poverty would check the homework and was surprised that the actual number was higher at 72%. Another of my misconceptions was that poverty is growing fastest in rural areas. In reality, suburban areas have shown the greatest increases in poverty. I also wrongly attributed a racist quotation to George Wallace. It turned out to be Abraham Lincoln. So how do we form our perceptions of inequity? Ashforth (1992) argued that individuals understand situations through the prism of their own beliefs, values, and unique situations, and because these perceptions are at least partially based on situational reality, perceived inequity has at last some connection to actual inequity. In defining my own perceptions, I can reflect on my own upbringing in a suburban environment in the 1970s and 1980s with widespread economic stability. Parents in this environment supported education almost universally, and the students that did struggle in school seemed to come from homes with considerable less parent supervision and involvement. My