October 11th-13th, Various locations throughout U of M
The World Conference on Remedies to Racial and Ethnic Economic Inequality in 2012 is the fourth conference initiated by the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice. Earlier meetings were in Minneapolis in 1996, in Australia in 1998, and in South Africa in 2001. The conference has returned to Minneapolis this year to harness the wisdom and research of the world's top thinkers on economic inequality to produce practical results that can be applied at the local level.
On the 20th anniversary of the Roy Wilkins Center, leaders of communities of color, academics, nonprofit leaders, and public policymakers from across the globe will work in collaboration for three days to examine successful, localized solutions to racial and ethnic economic inequality. They will ask of the remedies put forward:
Participants will earn two continuing education units (CEU). Please contact the Roy Wilkins Center rwilkins(at)umn.edu for more information.
Conference Topics
What is the trade-off between continual growth and persistent inequality?
Does the concentration of poverty in a specific place trump factors of race and ethnicity?
Will a race-neutral remedy produce an outcome as great as a race-conscious remedy?
Does a targeted business enterprise program increase the number of dollars going to people of color?
What does anti-discrimination legislation across the world have in common?
Can personal identity be maintained without the context of culture and tradition?
What do we know about children of color who are successful in school against all odds?
Can income equality be achieved?
Policy Implications of the World Conference
Traditional approaches to policy analysis, developed for the majority population, do not factor in the structural differences that exist between communities of color and majority-group communities. Communities of color, therefore, are at a disadvantage when conventional policy analyses are undertaken. One example is evaluation. Non-profit evaluation does not align automatically with academic evaluation, which often entails randomized trials or sophisticated methods of matching control and experimental groups. Nevertheless, it is academic evaluation that will produce the evidence to support local remedies in the face of skepticism by policy makers and decision makers. Widespread, respected tools of policy analysis, designed for the majority population, must be adjusted or reevaluated when examining the causes of inequality to be certain that their application is reaching the people who have the problem.
To register, view a detailed schedule, and learn more, click here.
