White Working Class Males in British Higher Education
7.1 Targeting white , working class males
Pre-entry : The study highlights the difficulties associated with defining and targeting white working class males . Collection of parental occupation data is likely to provide the most accurate assessment of socio-economic background but ensuring access to accurate data is problematic and none of the schools / colleges involved in the research felt this was an appropriate strategy for identifying target learners .
• Use of FSM data to identify individual learners within target schools is possibly the most straightforward approach but is likely to lead to some learners missing out and therefore flexibility to include other learners , identified by school staff , would be required .
• Use of FSM data is not possible across the board in the post-16 sector and therefore an alternative proxy appears to be eligibility for a college bursary . Again this is imperfect and for this group of learners it may be appropriate to also focus on those learners who path to HE is not secure , including those on vocational pathways .
• HEIs may also wish to consider how learners on work based provision may be targeted as part of WP initiatives as the data suggests white working class males are well represented within this form of learning .
Post-entry : The challenges of understanding the university experiences of working class students begins with recognising that a universally accepted definition of “ working class ” does not exist and choosing which measures to use to find out which students fit into the category of “ working class ” is contested ( Soria and Bultmann , 2014 ). There are a number of ways to try to identify working class student populations for outreach , recruitment , and support , each with their own challenges :
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• First generation students : For the post-entry research project , survey respondents and focus group participants were identified by their status as first generation students . First generation students are more likely to be from working class families than continuing generation students ( as in students who have at least one parent who has completed a university degree ) ( Gardner and Holley , 2011 ). However , first generation status does not always mean a student is working class .
• Postcode : HEFCE ’ s POLAR3 data provides insight into which neighbourhoods have lower or higher rates of higher education participation and is still used as a method to identify which students may be working class . For outreach and recruitment , focusing on low participation neighbourhoods should be a part of widening participation strategy at every university . Though , not all students living in a Quintile 1 postcode are working class . Additionally , the data on which the POLAR3 maps are based was published in 2012 and is based on the 2009 cohort of university age students , so it is starting to become outdated .
• Parental occupations : As a method for identifying social class , using parental occupation may not be ideal as it assumes many things , including ( but perhaps not limited to ): that a student has a parent or parents to begin with ; that a student is traditional age , rather than a mature student whose own occupation may be more relevant as a measure ; that parental occupations are singular , fixed , stable and longterm .
• Qualification for bursaries : At the university level , identifying students who qualify for bursaries based on income may be a method akin to identifying Free School Meal recipients when it comes to targeting working class students for outreach and support . Since the income level used to determine if a student is qualified for a bursary could either be their parents ’ or their own ( if they are a mature student or a student who has come out of care ), this method of identifying working class students might capture a broader population than using parental occupation . However , as this is sensitive information , it may be a challenge to reach out to this student group through this method of identification .