Wednesday 27 April 2022, 16:00-17:00

Room 224, Graham Kerr Building, 82 Hillhead Street, Glasgow  G12 8QQ

Measuring the diversity of undergraduate recruitment at Oxford and Cambridge

Measuring diversity – whether by ethnicity or nationality - currently amounts simply to counting categories. This makes it impossible to correlate with achievement, to track changes over time or to compare institutions in a meaningful way. It is not clear, for example, whether it is more diverse to have many ethnicities with a large majority in one or two categories, or to have fewer ethnicities with a larger proportion in each. This seminar introduces indices from cryptography and ecology, adapted for use in education, to solve the problem. Using data from Freedom of Information requests and university admissions offices, it analyzes the diversity of undergraduate recruitment at Oxford and Cambridge universities over the past ten years to resolve one of the most controversial issues in higher education today, but also to prompt some searching questions about BAME achievement. The approach outlined in the seminar is an important contribution to education research methodology, with clear applications in the field of educational effectiveness and for the debate on social justice in education.

About the speaker

Tony Kelly has been Professor of Education at the University of Southampton since 2004. He researches in the general area of education policy, governance and school improvement / effectiveness, and is particularly interested in the development of theory and methodology in these fields. He is the author of approx. 150 papers and monographs, and his most recent books are on conceptualising a theory of intellectual capital for use in schools (Kluwer Academic Press), the use of effectiveness data for school improvement (Routledge) and adapting Sen’s capability theory to school choice (Palgrave Macmillan). Tony is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics, of the Institute of Mathematics, and of the Academy of Social Sciences, and has appeared as an expert witness before the (UK Parliamentary) Select Committee on Education. He has served on the REF panel for Education in both 2014 and 2021 exercises. 

First published: 29 March 2022

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