aged 17-21, may conclude the reverse. The opposite conclusion can be drawn from
the same HE data by different analysts, because the proportion of working-class
families may have been decreasing over time in the UK, while the proportion of an
ethnic minority group may have been increasing.
A similarly key decision for an analysis of participation in one country concerns the
original domicile of the potential students. In an analysis for England, is only the
population of England relevant, or should the analysis include the potential students,
and so the population, of the other home countries of the UK - Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland. Excluding them complicates the analysis because it is then essential
to distinguish England-domiciled students from others. But as with the definition of
social categories (see above), this leads to issues about whose domicile counts. Is it
the residence of parents, of the potential students themselves, or some combination of
these? Students from within the European Union are treated, and charged fees, as
home students. Does this mean that the populations of all EU countries must also be
in the analysis? This leads to several analytic problems - most notably that the
population of countries like the Czech Republic is very different to that of the UK. So,
even if comparable official population figures from the Czech Republic exist, and this
is very unlikely, it means that the population figures in our analysis will be
considerably affected by those of a country which, in reality, provides an almost
negligible proportion of students for HE in the UK.
Measuring the characteristics of the population
If an analytical decision has been made to exclude overseas applicants, then the
population census of the UK provides the most complete coverage to help assess the
characteristics of the relevant population. But this census only happens every ten
years, making it dated, and some of the most relevant questions for this analysis are
only asked of a sub-sample of 10% of the cases, or for the economically active head
of the household, rather than for individuals.
Despite it being a legal requirement, not every household actually takes part, not
everyone is in a household, and not everyone who takes part responds to the class and