Muslim students less likely to be awarded top class degrees.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

From the Guardian. No link but it's easy enough to find.


Yes no doubt, there must be no end of variables involved but this:


Appears to be in conflict with this:


WTF? I eagerly await an explanation for this from our Muslim colleagues.


Every picture tells a story.

Does the research factor in other socioeconomic factors? 

For example, it may be (I don't know) that Muslim students are more likely to be immigrants or the children of immigrants. They may well be at a disadvantage in their primary education. Likewise, they may be living in poorer areas with lots of immigrants, or lower tax bases, in the schools aren't as good. 

Peter Hitchens has written a lot about how in the bad old days high schools could select students by merit, but the new system means that kids in rich areas, or kids with very rich parents, have clear advantages.

I don't know... I'm just thinking we should look at likely factors apart from religion.

When I went to high school in a totally podunk town with a barely-functioning high school, I was told that it's impossible to study for the SAT entrance exam. Then I got to New York and all the rich kids said they had been taking SAT prep courses for years before the exam. They had full-time counsellors and special tutoring included in their schools. They had full time placement officers in their high schools whose job it was to get them into the best college. 

Some of those kids were genuinely smarter than me, but some of them weren't -- they were the kids of rich parents who had their hands held all through college, who did the minimum amount of work anyway, and got great jobs out of college because of connections. They were generous with their cocaine, though, as a way of having us not hate them.

Anyway, there need to be many other things factored in to such a study.

The study made note of that:

“Reasons for differences in degree award by student’s religion during their time in [higher education] are complex and difficult to disentangle from other characteristics associated with religion“

It appears that the study was pointing out THAT Muslim students fail to be awarded degrees and not WHY this is the case.

Boru