Zuleika asked why my current research question focuses on female students particularly. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I didn’t have a great answer. I mean, apart from being a female student from a lower income background, I didn’t have any research or statistics to back this up. It was suggested to me that in order to focus solely on female students, I need a good reason eg. some data or research to back this up.
So I found some.
A 2019 article in The Guardian draws attention to the lack of diversity in universities. Once one looks past the slightly alarmist headline about over half the universities in England having less than 5% of poor white students, the article is actually very interesting. They break the country down into LPNs (low participation neighbourhoods) and talk about how white young people who receive free school meals are less likely to attend university than those who come from Traveller backgrounds. The article goes on to mention that of all the university applications from students from a LPN, only 22% are accepted and 50% of universities only accept less than 20% of applications from these potential students.
And then gender is mentioned.
“Of the higher education providers who responded to a survey by Neon, fewer than 40% were doing outreach work specifically with white males and fewer than 12% with white females from low-participation backgrounds.“
Later in the article it goes on to mention that white disadvantaged male students are the least likely of every ethnic group to attend university. However, this means that proportionally across universities, the majority of working class students will be female.
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