Key Concept: Equality

Modern notions of equality can be traced back to the emergence of the discourse of human rights in the aftermath of the Second World War, with its emphasis on formal and legal approaches to equality. Equality can be thought of as having several interrelated dimensions and it is helpful to separate these out. While in its most general sense it is about equal treatment, there are at least three components of this: equality of access; equality of opportunity; and equality of outcome. The chapter describes accounts of inequality/equality focusing simply on a single category of explanation, e.g., poverty, disability, ethnicity. This allows us to develop explanations that acknowledge resources are differentially located in relation to a number of dimensions: e.g., equality might mean very different things to a white, middle-class, non-disabled woman in relation to a black, working-class, disabled man.