Levelling the playing field between rural schools and urban schools in a HE context: a Scottish case study

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

At a time when interventions in widening access to, and participation in, higher education aim to maximise impact by engaging with schools located in the most deprived communities, school pupils in rural communities, and who experience deprivation, are, in practice, less likely to benefit. Using statistics available from the Scottish government, we show that state secondary schools located in Scottish remote or rural areas are not well served by the indicators capturing socio‐economic, educational, or geographical deprivation widely used in the selection of schools for these outreach interventions. We construct a marker that identifies schools facing higher levels of deprivation than the Scottish average. We argue that (1) this marker is a step in the direction towards levelling the playing field between remote or rural schools and urban schools; and (2) it selects a wider range of schools for outreach interventions.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)450-468
Number of pages19
JournalBritish Educational Research Journal
Volume47
Issue number2
Early online date11 Aug 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2021

Keywords

  • Higher education
  • Outcome measures and indicators
  • Rural-urban differences
  • Secondary education

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Levelling the playing field between rural schools and urban schools in a HE context: a Scottish case study'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this