12 The Psychology of Inequity empirical literature suggests that equity benefits everyone, and inequity hurts even those who are not the direct targets of inequality. INTERVENTIONS AIMED AT REDUCING INEQUITY Given the importance and urgency of the need to reduce inequality, this raises the other implication and possible future direction of the extant literature: How can we reduce inequity? The answer, of course, depends on the context and nature of the inequity. To illustrate, take the domain of discipline inequalities insofar as who is punished in school, and for what. In this context, it is well established that inequities exist based on factors that include sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, and gender (for review, see Skiba, Mediratta, & Rausch, 2016). Efforts aimed at reducing such inequalities have involved student-teacher ethnic matching, structured decision-making, and movements away from punitive discipline to more restorative approaches (e.g., Skiba et al., 2016). Similar efforts to reduce inequity in schools have been documented in other domains beyond discipline. Another well-documented inequity is socioeconomic inequality, which is related both to educational and finan- cial outcomes. Interventions that can ameliorate the effects of low SES on educational attainment include early childhood education—for example, enrolling low-income children in preschool (Magnuson & Duncan, 2016). Early enrollment in center-based early childhood education appears to have far-reaching advantages that can subsequently lower socioeconomic inequalities (Magnuson & Duncan, 2016). Additional interventions for reducing socioeconomic inequity have also been tested in higher educa- tion settings. These include self-affirmation (e.g., writing about one’s most important values), difference education (e.g., acknowledging how college can be a different experience for first-generation and non-first-generation students), and goal reframing (e.g., thinking of an exam as a learning opportunity instead of a way of selecting students for a review, see Jury et al., 2017). Outside of education, health disparities stand as an additional domain in which numerous interventions have been tested. Here, an interest- ing divergence emerges: while some interventions aimed at promoting public health have decreased inequalities between groups, others have ironically increased them. For example, mass media campaigns and bans on smoking in places such as work have been shown to exacerbate dis- parities in health outcomes between groups (Williams & Purdie-Vaughns, 2016). In contrast, other interventions that involving giving people resources, increasing the prices of maladaptive products (e.g., cigarettes), and improving conditions at work appear to effectively reduce inequi- ties (for review, see Williams & Purdie-Vaughns, 2016). However, there is evidence that both universal (e.g., laws about safety behaviors, health standards in food and water, taxes on unhealthy products) and targeted
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