From the results of these five steps, we can then calculate the difference between the
proportion of each social group in the relevant population and the proportion of the
same group in HE. If this difference is large and important then we can assume that
there is a problem requiring explanation and amelioration. This should form the
background to the HE widening participation agenda in the UK. The paper briefly
discusses each of these analytical steps, and mentions some of the key decisions and
compromises that need to made even in such an apparently simple calculation. It
continues with a presentation of some official data on HE participation that takes
these compromises into account.
Defining social categories
To establish that there should be more of a particular social group in HE than there is
we would first need to be able to define the group clearly, in such a way that the
definition could be used by different people in different places and at different times
to mean the same thing. Unfortunately, the categorisation of social groups by
occupational class or ethnicity is a matter of judgement over which even experts
disagree (Lambert 2002, Lee 2003). The categories themselves are arbitrary, and they
interact importantly with each other and with other categories such as sex (Gorard
2003). A further key problem in examining trends in social categories over time is
that the variables collected, or the coding used for the same variables, also change
over time. Consequently it is often difficult to make genuine and straightforward
comparisons over time or between groups.
Significantly for the measurement of WP, it is not clear whether any classification by
ethnicity or occupation should be of the potential student or of their parents. For
example, it seems absurd to try and base the occupational classification of a student
on their own work history when they may never have been anything other a full-time
student in education. But where the occupations of the two parents differ, which is to
be preferred? If one or more of the parents has not lived with the student, does this
make a difference? It is no less absurd to base the occupational classification of a
student aged 45 on the previous occupation of their parents. If, on the other hand, we
use two different classification systems for younger and older students, at what age