Types of discrimination

We differentiate between the following types or levels of discrimination:

Direct or individual (interactional) level: Behavior towards another person is ostracizing or degrading.
Indirect or secondary level: Discrimination occurs in guidelines or measures with neutral wording that does not contain any obvious discrimination, but can be discriminatory to certain groups.
Institutional or structural level: Actions of an organization, discrimination due to laws, ordinances, guidelines or institutional routines of the culture of an organization that lead to imbalanced distribution of opportunities.
Societal level: Discrimination by means of ideas, names and images. Ideas and images are brought to the University through the creation of knowledge in the form of media, academic literature, teaching units and concepts, but also in everyday discourse (cf. German Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency (Antidiskriminierungsstelle des Bundes) 2014a: 11).
Intersectional or multiple discrimination: Discrimination on single grounds is rare in our everyday lives, multiple or inter-sectional discrimination is more common. This means that several characteristics or categories interact and can lead to discrimination.

Index