British Universities Confront Race

A long article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (online today, but from the issue dated December 6) discusses the relatively new confrontation with racial issues in British universities. It’s worth reading. (Link requires subscription)

A couple of things (not necessarily the most important things) in it stood out for me.

The article reports, for example, that “Britain’s population is estimated at just under 90 percent white, versus about 75 percent white in the United States.” In the next paragraph it then reports:

In contrast to the United States, where 33 percent of American students at four-year institutions in the fall of 2000 were from ethnic minorities, in Britain just 13.2 percent of university students who are British were from ethnic minority groups in the same academic year, according to Britain’s Higher Education Statistics Agency.

Later the articles invites readers to

[c]ompare Oxford, where 10 percent of students admitted in 2001 were from minorities, with the University of Westminster, which changed status in 1992 and admits 50-percent minority students. Such discrepancies mean that minority students are significantly less represented in the older and possibly better universities.

So, 10% of Britain’s population is nonwhite, and 10% of the students admitted to Britain’s prestigious old universities in 2001 were minorities. What, exactly, is the problem? Indeed, the numbers presented make it appear that minorities are overrepresented in both British and American universities.

The source of this confusion, I believe, is a lack of clarity — not just in the article but among its subjects — of what equality is and what it requires. Thus we are told that “[o]ne impetus for change is a race-relations law that went into force last May, requiring universities to craft racial-equality plans,” but we are not told what is meant by equality, or what he plans should plan for.

Say What? (4)

  1. Joanne Jacobs December 4, 2002 at 8:40 pm | | Reply

    You’re right. According to the story, minorities are over-represented at universities in Britain and here.

    You’d think the Chronicle of Higher Ed would know the numbers, but I don’t see how 33 percent of U.S. students could be minorities, even counting Asians. Hispanic students have very low rates of four-year college attendance (and high school graduation). Blacks don’t do that well at four-year colleges. How can it be 33 percent?

  2. John Rosenberg December 4, 2002 at 9:09 pm | | Reply

    Joanne – You got me, but then I don’t do numbers very well (Jessie, where are you?). I thought those numbers were, odd, too. Maybe they include community/junior colleges? Of course, counting minorities always presents something of a conceptual problem (everyone with a Hispanic surname? etc.).

  3. Joanne Jacobs December 4, 2002 at 10:02 pm | | Reply

    The American Council on Education released a study a few months ago: It says students “of color” make up 28 percent of enrollment and 22 percent of those earning degrees. Blacks and Hispanics are somewhat less likely than whites (or Asians) to earn a high school diploma, less likely to go to college and significantly less likely to earn a diploma. Asians are first in all categories.

  4. John Rosenberg December 4, 2002 at 10:08 pm | | Reply

    Joanne – Thanks for providing those numbers! Do you know (or have at your fingertips, as you did the ACE report!) how that 28% compares to, say,

    the % of high school graduates “of color,” the % of college age people “of color,” the % of the overall population “of color”? (I feel like I’m telling an “off color” joke….)

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