Similarities and differences: Measuring diversity and selecting peers in higher education

Diversity among institutions or, at least, institutional types is a policy objective that most systems of higher education pursue. At the same time th ose systems are also concerned about equity of access and the quality of ed ucational opportunity. Individual institutions, for a variety of reasons ra nging from accountability to the allocation of scarce resources, attempt to compare or "benchmark" themselves against other institutions. Both activit ies involve measurement, classification, and the selection of peers. Althou gh customarily addressed apart from one another, diversity and peer selecti on can be conceptually closely linked within single scales of similarity an d dis-similarity. Existing paradigms that explain diversity might be too si mple for reliable peer selection and comparison, and might fail to account for all expressions of diversity. A case study is used to discover the conn ections between diversity and peer selection, test existing paradigms, and develop a modified methodology that can be used for selecting peers and mea suring diversity.