age 16. This participation gap is clear (there are fewer missing cases in answer to
questions about sex/gender than occupation or ethnicity), robust in the sense that it
appears annually, and apparently growing. Yet, ironically, this is one area where WP
is not particularly active at time of writing, reflecting a lack of policy concern with the
under-representation of males.
Table 6 - Percentage of female students, UK, 1994/95-2004/05
|
1994/95 |
1999/00 |
2004/05 | |
|
Full-time first degree |
^49 |
53 |
^^53 |
|
Part-time first degree |
^^53 |
^^65 |
^^65 |
Source: HESA
Perhaps the most important target of widening participation activity has been tackling
the apparent under-representation of less advantaged socio-economic groups. Table 7
presents a historical breakdown of the student body in the UK by social class
(Registrar General’s previous scale, Gorard 2003). It shows that students come from
predominantly professional and intermediate backgrounds (I/II), with few from part-
skilled and unskilled backgrounds (IV/V). This pattern changes very little over the
time period shown. The most consistent change has been in the growth of those
students of unknown occupational class. It is important to note that occupational
groups are not evenly divided in the population, and we would expect there to be
many more individuals in HE from class II than from class IV, for example. And this
is what we find. The dominance of certain social groups in HE is partly a function of
their numerical frequency in the population which changes over historical time, to an
extent that is not always made clear in media and policy reports. If the population is
becoming more middle-class over time, for example, then we would quite rightly
expect students at HE (who tend to be younger than the population as a whole) to be
more middle-class than the resident population. In itself, this would not be unfair or
even disproportionate in relation to the correct figures for the appropriate age-related
population (which we may not have).
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