The Spectator Debuts Demographics Survey

On January 30, The Spectator asked members of its various departments to fill out our newly launched demographics survey. The Spectator debuted its demographics survey to collect more accurate information about the racial, ethnic, and ancestral makeup of the Stuyvesant student body. The survey is open to all current Stuyvesant students and consists of one self-reported question about ethnic identity and seven self-reported questions about the birthplaces of students and members of their immediate family. 

There is currently no detailed dataset about the complex demographic makeup of Stuyvesant. The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) publishes some information about the demographics of its schools, but it has not published any specific information regarding Stuyvesant’s demographics past the well-known statistics of 71 percent Asian, 18 percent White, four percent Hispanic/Latinx, two percent Black, and less than one percent Native American or Pacific Islander. Similarly, The Spectator’s freshman survey’s only question about ethnicity asks students to name the ethnicity that best describes their background, with a set of answer choices that mirrors the NYCDOE’s data—blanket designations of race that aren’t truly indicative of one’s heritage and identity. While the freshman survey’s results confirm the NYCDOE’s published statistics, The Spectator believes that Stuyvesant students are more complex than the broadly overarching categorization of “71 percent Asian.”

The demographics survey provides students with a chance to self-identify under the definition of ethnicity used by The Spectator, which refers to the term as “the social group a person belongs to or identifies with.” A student may select up to 10 ethnicities because ethnic identity is often more complicated than one group. For the questions about ancestry, students may select locations on a map or search for them by city, state, name, or address. The Spectator understands that it is impossible to include all of the possible identities that could be present within the student body. However, we aim to come as close as possible to making sure every student who takes this survey feels represented and has options to select from. If you do not feel that you are represented by the options in this survey or have other concerns, please email web@stuyspec.com, and accommodations will be arranged. 

Additionally, the survey’s statistics and response data will be anonymous, which means no published content will ever be traceable to an individual response. The Spectator plans to use the anonymous response data to publish in-depth statistics and analysis articles about the demographics that make up Stuyvesant. This analysis will be similar to the style of the aforementioned freshman surveys conducted by The Spectator, and we hope to learn more about the diversity of Stuyvesant as well as the lack thereof beyond the currently available statistics. A public data analytics dashboard will also be revealed following the collection of a representative sample of the student body so that The Spectator’s survey analytics remain open for all.  

The survey can be found at https://survey.stuyspec.com or by scanning the QR code pictured below. We urge you to join this effort to assess the true demographics of our community.