equal opportunity
1
7.2
- noun
- /ˈiːkwəl ˌɒpərˈtunɪti/
- Specialized
:
igualdad de oportunidades
- In our company, we prioritize equal opportunity by ensuring that all applicants are considered fairly, regardless of their background.
Examples
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It is important to note, however, that successful instructional programs begin with a well-defined and well-executed assessment program that follows equal opportunity guidelines, least restrictive environment placement policies, and instructional procedures that are culturally sensitive.
Academic text (1998) -
Yeah, free promotion led to a ton of bullshit posts on Facebook, but at least great posts had an equal opportunity to stand out.
Blog text (25) -
A totally random design was used in the current study to ensure that all the stimuli would have an equal opportunity to be presented in either the study lists or the test lists.
Academic text (2004) -
They agree that government should, among other things, determine who businesses should hire (equal opportunity/affirmative action legislation), what and how to pay employees (minimum wage laws, insider trading laws), and how to protect their health and safety (health and safety regulations), with whom it can collaborate (antitrust laws), how much emissions it can release, whether and where it can build oil pipelines (various environmental regulations), and who can own what (foreign ownership restrictions).
Blog text (12) -
The new policy aims to promote equal opportunity in hiring practices, ensuring that all candidates have a fair chance to be selected.
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To achieve equal opportunity in education, schools must provide the same resources and support to students from different demographic groups.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly compositional: 'equal' (the same) + 'opportunity' (chance) yields the understandable meaning 'the same chance' or 'same opportunities', so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will infer it refers to providing the same chances to different people. While the machine-learning definition gives a precise technical criterion (equal true positive rates across groups), that is a specialization built on the transparent, ordinary-language sense.
Etymology
Equal opportunity in computer systems shows a similar picture: imagine a test that should find real cases equally often in every group. The word equal means 'the same' and opportunity means 'a chance', so here it means each group has the same chance to be correctly found when they truly are positive cases.