Muslim students less likely to be awarded top class degrees.

[Succubus#2]

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

“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,”

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

The researchers found that the gap between Muslims and others got wider as the proportion of Muslims studying at an institution fell. Universities with Muslims making up just 3% of students saw the worst outcomes compared with their peers...

Appears to be in conflict with this:

The researchers also noted that the performance of Muslim students was inversely related to the proportion of Muslim staff at an institution: for every additional percentage point of Muslim staff, the attainment gap between Muslims and non-Muslims shrank by more than by two percentage points.

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

Jewish students were the most academically successful among all groups: nearly nine out of 10 graduated with a first or 2.1 degree. And eight out of 10 students with no religion also achieved a first or 2.1.

Every picture tells a story.

[Fake Messiah]

Yeah, Muslims should look-up to the Jews if they want to be more successful in life.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

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

“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,”

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

The researchers found that the gap between Muslims and others got wider as the proportion of Muslims studying at an institution fell. Universities with Muslims making up just 3% of students saw the worst outcomes compared with their peers...

Appears to be in conflict with this:

The researchers also noted that the performance of Muslim students was inversely related to the proportion of Muslim staff at an institution: for every additional percentage point of Muslim staff, the attainment gap between Muslims and non-Muslims shrank by more than by two percentage points.

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

Jewish students were the most academically successful among all groups: nearly nine out of 10 graduated with a first or 2.1 degree. And eight out of 10 students with no religion also achieved a first or 2.1.

Every picture tells a story.

The take away here is that Jews are clearly smarter than Muslims. There can’t possibly be ANY other explanation for this disparity.

Boru

(Just trying to get ahead of the bigot curve)

[Succubus#2]

What explains the correlation between the number of Muslim teachers and Muslim students?

[The Grand Nudger]

The percentage of muslim staff is probably related to the percentage of muslim students by pure demographics. If there's a significant population of muslims in an area choosing to study and work at a particular institution - the numbers would be expected to average out (outside of institutional bias). In areas with only a few muslim students, it's likely for there to be even fewer muslim professors...but lets imagine some critical mass where the percentages even out and then rise together.

3% can only absorb one shitty student at 33%, whereas 9% can absorb 3 at 33%. In this event..the relationship is coincidental.

One muslim trust fund baby, dumb as a rock, at a predominantly non-muslim institution will have a higher statistical weight and fewer muslim professors. Validating both points of data. Potentially, ofc. I'd be more worried about institutional bias given the surface relationship of those numbers, than muslim people being dumber than other people - or jewish people being smarter. One otherwise bright student expressing themselves in a culturally isolated way can stand in very well for the single (actually) shitty student, especially with fewer people to appreciate what they're trying to say. Whatever could increase the percentage of muslim professors would be a good hedge against unintentional but insensitive mistakes like that.

It's hard to believe that there aren't non-muslim professors who failed up and muslim professors who succeeded down (especially given attainment gaps). The low hanging fruit for a university with a larger attainment gap is obvious. Reach out and hire professors. Hilariously difficult to do - optics.

[Fake Messiah]

Most religious people that are in academia are secular and especially Jews who are mostly only culturally Jewish (they don't exactly believe in burning bush and flood). I mean if you look at Nobel laureates you can see a lot of "Jews" but basically no Muslims.

Similar case is with Christians.

Of course, secular Muslims are still very rare, so that is perhaps why they aren't in noticable numbers in academia.
Because if you have a lot of faith in nonsense from holy books, you have to spend a lot of mental energy every day to rationalize those nonsensical things in order so that they appear to you as "real" in face of actuall reality, so you don't have enough mental energy left to do the real thinking and learning.

[brewer]

I think the answer is "god did it", for a lot of different reasons.

[Belacqua]

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

“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,”

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

The researchers found that the gap between Muslims and others got wider as the proportion of Muslims studying at an institution fell. Universities with Muslims making up just 3% of students saw the worst outcomes compared with their peers...

Appears to be in conflict with this:

The researchers also noted that the performance of Muslim students was inversely related to the proportion of Muslim staff at an institution: for every additional percentage point of Muslim staff, the attainment gap between Muslims and non-Muslims shrank by more than by two percentage points.

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

Jewish students were the most academically successful among all groups: nearly nine out of 10 graduated with a first or 2.1 degree. And eight out of 10 students with no religion also achieved a first or 2.1.

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.

[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

[Belacqua]

Jews who are mostly only culturally Jewish (they don't exactly believe in burning bush and flood)

[...]


Because if you have a lot of faith in nonsense from holy books,  you have to spend a lot of mental energy every day to rationalize those nonsensical things in order so that they appear to you as "real" in face of actuall reality, so you don't have enough mental energy left to do the real thinking and learning.

This is a mistake you make all the time. You assume that all religious people are literalist sola scriptura. This is ignorance on your part, and the reason you won't learn otherwise appears to be bigotry. 

There are many religious Jews -- to whom their religion is very important -- who don't read the burning bush and flood as literal historical events. The non-literal reading has a long history, is well known, and people who, unlike you, know what they're talking about have no problem with it.

Likewise educated Muslims don't have to waste time rationalizing myths and wasting their mental energy.

You're the one wasting mental energy by making false and prejudiced assumptions about a huge and diverse group of people.

---

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

Boru

It appears that some of our fellow posters are happy to ignore that part, and draw whatever conclusion they want. In the case above, that conclusion is his usual "religious people dumb."