Diversidad cultural planificada y medida en una escuela fronteriza de Maicao, Colombia: lecciones metodológicas de muestreo, codificación y medición de la diversidad estudiantil

Studies on multicultural schools often describe student diversity through estimates rather than measured data. This article compares the planned design and the documented execution of a study conducted at the three campuses of a public school in Maicao (La Guajira, Colombia), on the border with Venezuela. Project documents were contrasted with the databases of a survey administered between 6 and 17 November 2025 to 232 students (231 in grades 3 to 5 and one in grade 1) and 24 teachers. Sample size and margin of error, Simpson’s diversity index, between-campus tests, and internal consistency were recalculated. The effective sample reached 90.3% of the planned sample, with uneven coverage across campuses (from 75.0% to 105.3%) and no grade 3 surveys at one campus. Diversity measured through self-identification was very high (unbiased Simpson estimator = 0.75), but campus composition differed from the estimates, χ²(6) = 19.38, p = .004, V = .20. Verification also detected an erroneous assignment of ethnic codes in previous analyses, which reversed the ranking of groups on an exclusion indicator. Measuring diversity and auditing coding are steps worth building into the design of such studies.