California's student body is diverse

California has the largest and most diverse student population in America. Diversity has many forms — this lesson will summarize a few of them.

About 6 million students attend California public K-12 schools. Another half a million or so attend private schools. In rough terms, our state has about half a million students in each grade level. To provide for their education, about 300,000 teachers and about 600,000 support staff work in about 10,000 schools in about 1,000 districts across the state.

Over half of California's students are Latinx

California is known worldwide as the Golden State. People from all over the world move here to live, work, and learn. People also move away, as summarized in a data-rich visual report from CalMatters titled California Migration. More than half of California's K-12 students are Latino/Latina (Latinx). In a huge demographic shift over roughly 30 years, the state’s K-12 schools had an increase of about 2 million Latino students, accounting for all of the net growth in California K-12 enrollment.

As of 2020, Latinx students make up about 55% of the state student body. Non-Latinx white students account for 22%. Most of the remaining students are Asian (10%), African-American (5%), or Filipino (2-3%). About 4% of California students associate themselves with none of the above. California’s large urban districts educate students from virtually every cultural and linguistic background on the planet.

In a huge demographic shift over roughly 30 years, the state’s K-12 schools added more than 2 million Latinx students, accounting for all of the net growth in California enrollment.

California's student body is very different than that of the United States as a whole, as this chart shows:

Diverse, but not blended

In total, California's student body is very diverse, but people tend to live in clusters. For example, only a tiny percentage of California's total student body is Armenian or Persian, but these are the largest cultural groups in Glendale. In Pacifica, many students speak Tagalog. In Westminster, many students speak Vietnamese. Yuba City is home to many Punjabi speakers. California's diversity is clumped like granola. San Francisco Unified School District has a diverse student body, in total, but each school is its own community. Some schools are very diverse and others less so. In southern California, more than 250,000 students attend schools where more than 95% of students are Latinx.

Anyway, even if a school is diverse on paper it doesn't ensure that students form diverse friendships and connections.

Demographers measure ethnic diversity using a statistical index that evaluates the odds that two people selected at random will be of the same ethnicity. California's statewide diversity index is 47 — you can check the diversity index of your school and district on Ed-Data.org.

Nearly half of California’s students speak a language other than English at home. Many have successfully learned English; less than a quarter of California’s students are English Language Learners (abbreviated EL or ELL), which means that they speak another language and have not yet achieved functional fluency in English.

Most of California's English Learners speak Spanish at home, but the state is linguistically diverse. In any given school there may be a cluster of English Learners who speak Vietnamese (2.1% of English Learners), Mandarin (1.6%), Arabic (1.4%), Tagalog (1.3%), Cantonese (1.2%), or any of dozens of other languages. (Click image for 2019-20 data.)

Status diversity: How many students in California are undocumented?

The biggest changes in California demographics have been driven by immigration, primarily from Mexico. Statistics regarding the immigration status of California’s students and their families are imprecise. As discussed in Lesson 2.9, undocumented students make up perhaps one in every 30 students enrolled in a California public school.

In 1982 the US Supreme Court ruled in Plyler v. Doe that immigration status cannot serve as a condition for enrollment in American public schools. Access to public education is open to all students residing in the US, regardless of immigration status. This right includes higher education; the California Dream Act extended in-state tuition benefits to all residents. After about a decade of litigation, in 2010 this policy was upheld by a unanimous ruling of the state Supreme Court.

Religious diversity

Pew Research studies the religious affiliation of adults.

California's religious diversity reflects the history of immigration to the state. Catholics are the largest single group, reflecting the long history of immigration from Latin America. For more information about religious diversity in California, visit the Pew Research Center.

Sexual Orientation

California has played a leading role in moving the American public toward accepting of another kind of diversity: sexual orientation and gender identity. The history of gay rights in California is beyond the scope of this lesson, but it is worth noting that a lot has changed in a few decades. For most young people, the struggle for marriage equality is mostly history, and students are reasonably likely to know teachers or other adults that don't conceal their orientation.

Measurement of changing public attitudes about sexual orientation is a key long-term priority of the Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law. Researchers have struggled to provide journalists and policymakers with good data. What percentage of adults are gay or bisexual? What percentage of children will grow up to be gay or bisexual?

The short answer, as usual, is that it depends on how you define your terms. According to Williams Distinguished Scholar Gary J Gates, "An estimated 19 million Americans (8.2%) report that they have engaged in same-sex sexual behavior" but a lower percentage, about 3.5% of adults, identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual.

Gender Identity

Part of the experience of growing up is figuring yourself out, including sexual orientation and gender identity.In the past, these topics were widely taboo, but with each generation, the levels of acceptance appear to be increasing:

These are big numbers. School systems play a critical role in supporting all children through their adolescence, in part by encouraging them to accept and respect themselves, as well as people different from themselves.

This lesson was extensively updated on May 18, 2017
to include information about diversity in religious beliefs, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Updated March, 2018 with chart comparing student body of CA to USA.
Updated September 2018 with data about the linguistic diversity of over 200,000 English Learners in California.
Chart updated June 2019
Updated Oct 2020 with resources about gender diversity.
Extensively updated Dec 2020 including interactive charts.
Updated August 2022.