When Numbers Deceive: Rethinking Equity for Culturally Diverse Doctoral Candidates

In Australian higher education, equity is often measured through population parity—the idea that when enrolment numbers for a group reflect their proportion in the general population, equity has been achieved. But what happens when parity is achieved and equity status revoked? What if those numbers plateau or even decline, and the group quietly disappears from policy focus? This has happened to culturally and linguistically diverse doctoral candidates in the 2016 Australian Council of Learned Academies’ (ACOLA) Report on Australian doctoral education.