You will have gathered from this post’s titile, I hope, that minority math is indistinguishable from non-minority math, a point that is strangely absent from the Chronicle of Higher Education’s article this morning, “Minority Students Needed in Math and Science to Combat ‘Brain Drain,’ Professors Say,” and the professors quoted there.
The article begins:
Mathematics-education experts on Tuesday urged the federal government to get more involved in recruiting underrepresented minority students to science, math, and engineering majors, saying such efforts are key to increasing the number of Americans working in those fields….
“For the first time in history, we are experiencing the brain drain that other countries have experienced,” said Carlos Castillo-Chavez, a professor of mathematical biology at Arizona State University. “Reverse immigration” of Chinese and Indian scientists and mathematicians who studied and worked in the United States but are now returning to their home countries will heighten the need for developing talent among U.S. citizens, he said.
Well, yes. If more minority students enter math and science (and the number of entering non-minority students does not decrease), more students will be entering math and science. What is not explained is why it is “key” that the additional students we need in math and science should be minority students.
Because they are “underrepresented,” it might be argued, they represent the largest pool from which to gather new recruits. That might be true, but it also might not. Perhaps attracting more students like those already attracted would yield greater numbers. And then there’s a question about the number who graduate as opposed to the number who enter. If a much higher proportion of non-minority students actually complete math and science degrees, it may be more productive to recruit more of them than to seek more entering students from groups whose graduation rate is lower. Of course, these concerns are relevant only if the need for more math science students is based on the national interest rather than on the interest (or lack of it) of the students being recruited.
Here’s a thought: if we need more math and science and students, why not simply take steps to make that career choice more appealing and affordable for all students, without regard to their race or ethnicity?
I was never very good at math (a considerable understatement), but it seems to me that a need for more mathematicians and scientists ≠ more minority mathematicians and scientists.
Yet again, they talk about “minorities” when it is clear that what they really mean is “underrepresented minorities”. The only reference to overrepresented minorities is to “Chinese and Indian scientists” who are “returning to their home countries”.
First of all, for many of these overrepresented minorities, the United States is their home country. Secondly, many of them would stop leaving if only we would stop deporting them. (Yes, yes, I know, we don’t literally deport them. We just don’t let them stay.)