“Cosmetic diversity”: University websites and the transformation of race categories.

Abstract

are under pressure to represent the ethno-racial diversity of their student bodies in the most favorable light via their websites. We analyzed the race/ethnicity tables and figures featured prominently on the websites of 158 colleges and universities. We found 3 practices that institutions undertake to enhance the appearance of diversity on campus: omission, aggregation, and addition of ethno-racial categories. Universities with the lowest levels of student diversity were the most likely to engage in these practices. We understand these practices to be organizational-level racial projects (Omi & Winant, 2015). That is, universities are actively transforming "the content and importance of racial categories" (p. 61).

Demystifying Tuition? A Content Analysis of the Information Quality of Public College and University Websites

“…Other studies specifically focused on information distributed by higher education institutions have examined college viewbooks and websites (Ford & Patterson, 2019;Hartley & Morphew, 2008;Saichaie & Morphew, 2014;Venegas, 2006). For example, grounded by the competing public and private purposes of higher education (e.g., Abowitz, 2008;Labaree, 1997;Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004), Saichaie and Morphew (2014) conducted a content analysis of 12 higher education institutions' websites to raise concerns about the apparent overemphasis of institutional messaging toward credentialing and vocational purposes of higher education, at the expense of conveying learning-, citizenship-, and democratic-based goals.…”

“…The authors suggest that such messaging may lead students to enter college without understanding the rigors or fundamental goals of a college education. Ford and Patterson (2019) also examined website content to explore how institutions present content related to student–body diversity. Examining screenshots from 128 colleges and universities, the authors reasoned that institutions strategically represent data through practices of omission, aggregation, and addition to promote positive images of ethnoracial diversity on their campuses that mask underlying challenges associated with the success of underrepresented college students.…”

Exploring the status of diversity in policies and practices of Spanish universities. An asymmetric dual model

“…Some authors have already begun to propose them ( Khan et al., 2019 ), and this may be an appropriate path to convergence of the current duality of goals. However, “cosmetic diversity” changes ( Ford and Patterson, 2019 ; Hoffman and Mitchell, 2016 ) or, as is the case of some global rankings, the representation of human beings as institutional goods (e.g., the inclusion of the number of international students as a quality indicator) ( Ford and Cate, 2020 ) might not be the way to overcome the current asymmetric pattern. The cognitive dissonance of promoting rankings and, at the same time, diversity and equity has to be addressed ( Stack, 2020 ).…”

“…In the first stage, as a means of diagnosing institutional philosophy and policy, an ex post facto study was performed through documentary analysis and review of information accessible via university websites. Website content analysis has already been used in other research as a source of information about the commitment of higher education institutions to diversity, inclusion, equity and social justice (e.g., Ford et al., 2019 ; Ford and Patterson, 2019 ; Holland and Ford, 2020 ; LePeau et al., 2018 ; Wilson et al., 2012 ; Wilson and Meyer, 2009 ), so that this tradition was continued in our first stage. This data collection strategy is more objective than survey procedures when researchers focus on normative information, since limited cognitive ability of respondents to retrieve stored data is avoided, even if, on the other hand, content analysis includes an interpretative component when linking text units to codes ( Krippendorff, 2013 ).…”

Diversity without Race

“…In line with these discourses, many institutions strategically represent their diversity visually through their websites and recruitment brochures (Ford & Patterson, 2019;Pippert et al, 2013). For example, institutions in the United States strategically include images in recruitment brochures of a student body that is more diverse than their actual student population (Pippert et al, 2013).…”