Because the Numbers Matter: Transforming Postsecondary Education Data on Student Race and Ethnicity to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Nation

Posted in Articles, Caribbean/Latin America, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2010-11-11 01:58Z by Steven

Because the Numbers Matter: Transforming Postsecondary Education Data on Student Race and Ethnicity to Meet the Challenges of a Changing Nation

Educational Policy
Volume 18, Number 5 (November 2004)
pages 752-783
DOI: 10.1177/0895904804269941

Kristen A. Renn, Associate Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education
Michigan State University

Christina J. Lunceford, Professor of Education
California State University, Fullerton

In 1997, the Office of Management and Budget revised guidelines for treatment of racial and ethnic data, adding a requirement to allow respondents to indicate more than one race and mandating a change in all federal data collection and reporting by January 1, 2003. Nearly 2 years after the deadline for implementation, however, higher education institutions had not yet been required by the National Center for Education Statistics to make the change. This article discusses the policy context for collecting and reporting data on student race and ethnicity in higher education and challenges created by the addition of the multiple race option. This article describes the current status of postsecondary racial/ethnic data collection, predicts challenges in aggregating and bridging data, and makes recommendations for policy and practice.

Read the entire article here.

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