Minority athletes are more likely than their white peers to “cluster” in certain academic majors, a new study suggests.

The study, described in a paper by researchers at Nova Southeastern University and published in the Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics, examined the prevalence of “clustering” among football players in the Atlantic Coast Conference. The researchers defined clustering, which has raised concerns at the NCAA, as having 25 percent or more of the players on a team choose the same academic major.

The study covered 394 upperclass athletes at 11 of the 12 ACC universities. Fifty-nine percent were identified as minority students. The universities were not identified by name in the study.

The minority players clustered into a single major at a higher rate than their white peers at nearly every university in the study, the authors note. Four teams had 62 percent or more of their minority upperclass athletes clustered into a single major.

White athletes also tended to cluster, although not to the same degree as their minority counterparts. Over all, of the 11 colleges examined, six had one-third or more of all upperclass football players in a single major. The highest concentration was at a university at which 73 percent of the athletes in the study were majoring in business management. —Libby Sander