New NSF publication on reporting Racial and Ethnic Diversity in STEM

The National Science Foundation has just released NSF 12-304, a report from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) titled "Racial and Ethnic Diversity among U.S.- Educated Science, Engineering, and Health Doctorate Recipients: Methods of Reporting Diversity".

The report takes data on doctoral recipients and breaks it out according to Hispanic or non-Hispanic ethnicity, and then by single or mutiple races.  The report shows nicely how complex it can be to try to work with this type of demographic data in statistical tables, where definition is everything.  

Sadly there are not really many major new insights here.  80% of the STEM PhD recipients are still white and non-Hipanic,  and the overall total of self-reported multiracial PhDs is also very low, about 1.2%.   But, younger recipients tend to be more likely to report multiracial status than older PhDs, and in general American Indians, Alaska Natives, Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiian PhD recipients were the most multiracial of all underrepresented minorities.  

Download the report and/or read it on the web at 
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf12304/?WT.mc_id=USNSF_179

Personally I welcome the NSF and NCSES trying hard to tackle the complexity of race and ethnicity in a manner that we can track through time quantitatively.  Their efforts help guide ours and help us benchmark our own progress in diversifying the geosciences here at Texas A&M.

Cheers,

Eric