Social class, ethnicity and access to higher education in the four countries of the UK: 1996-2010

This paper compares access to full-time undergraduate higher education (HE) by members of less advantaged social classes and ethnic minorities across the four 'home countries' of the UK. It uses data on applicants to HE in selected years from 1996 to 2010. In all home countries students fr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of lifelong education 2014-01, Vol.33 (1), p.77-95
Main Authors: Croxford, Linda, Raffe, David
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Achievement
Access to Education
Admission Criteria
Benchmarking
College Administration
College Admission
Comparative Analysis
Disadvantaged
Educational Policy
England
Ethnicity
Foreign Countries
Großbritannien
Higher Education
Hochschule
Hochschulpolitik
Hochschulzulassung
Minority Group Students
Minority Groups
Minority students
Northern Ireland
Regression (Statistics)
Scotland
Social Class
Social classes
Soziale Herkunft
Statistik
United Kingdom
Vergleich
Wales
White Students
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Summary:This paper compares access to full-time undergraduate higher education (HE) by members of less advantaged social classes and ethnic minorities across the four 'home countries' of the UK. It uses data on applicants to HE in selected years from 1996 to 2010. In all home countries students from intermediate and working-class backgrounds retained a broadly level share of a rising total participation in HE, while ethnic minorities increased their share. Intermediate- and working-class students were more likely to study within their own home country, as were ethnic-minority students in England, but minority students from Northern Ireland and Scotland were much more likely than white students to study elsewhere (usually England). Some aspects of the admissions process appear to have been 'unfair' to lower class applicants; this was the same across the UK although the relative success of applications from colleges and independent schools, which might accentuate or mitigate inequalities, varied across the home countries. In England and Wales, ethnic-minority applicants were less likely to be offered a place but they compensated (only partially in the case of older universities) by gaining entry through clearing; in Scotland they were as likely to be offered a place but less likely to enter HE. The paper discusses the potential of such comparisons for benchmarking and for policy learning. It concludes that the similarities between the home countries are more substantial than their differences, and that administrative and political devolution in the 1990s has had little impact on inequalities in HE. There is no evidence of a significant impact of the divergence between market policies in England and the more social-democratic policies of the devolved administrations.
ISSN:0260-1370
1464-519X
DOI:10.1080/02601370.2013.873214