Following the introduction to widening participation in physiotherapy education highlighted in the first paper of this series, this article explores race, ethnicity and higher education in the United Kingdom. It aims to identify issues of equal opportunities with regard to ethnicity among students and staff in higher education and discerns the complexities of these issues in physiotherapy education. This paper discusses the barriers to access and retention of ethnic groups and considers why the current political and educational ideologies on individual development and educational achievement in higher education may not be enough to encourage and support these groups in specialist courses such as physiotherapy. Moreover, the paper contends that an understanding of cultural difference should be considered when addressing the issue of accommodating diversity, a challenge of fundamental importance for those involved in the generation of policy and practice, not just in physiotherapy but in the education of all adults.